Get a....grappa?

Last night I went out with one of my coworkers. Not on a date or anything but on a let's do dinner with some friends thing. Our destination of choice was the East Village and we wound up at an Italian restaurant that had a nice selection of grappa.

Now, for the uninitiated, grappa, to me at least, is the equivalent of jet fuel. I had it when I was in Italy in 2005 and I really didn't acquire a taste for it then. I don't even like the sweet fruit or honey infused versions. If I'm going to drink it, I want it nice and dry and I want it to burn going down. I ordered up a round for the three of us that went out because the two of them had never had it before and I told them they had to swig it back. They hated it, I loved it. For some reason grappa has grown on me. Or I actually had some good grappa.

After dinner, bar hopping became the objective. Now, mind you I was dressed nicely for the evening but wasn't really prepared to go bar hopping. Not that I was opposed to it but since I'm not really that much of a bar person to begin with, it wasn't something that I was looking forward to. On the plus side, the hard workouts I've been doing have definitely been paying off because I'm toning up, getting a bit more definition, and basically feeling better about myself. However, there's always that nagging bit of self doubt and self esteem in going out as well. I'm horrible at knowing when I'm being cruised and can count on one hand the number of times I've been hit on in a bar. My track record is less than stellar.

So we hit three bars in the East Village and I went a whopping 0-3. Not that I didn't try but either I wasn't what they were looking for or wasn't dressed the part or perhaps I'm just fucking Quasimodo. Either way, my ego took a HUGE hit last night. I'll recover that's for sure but it was still a little depressing to get great compliments from friends about how great I look with the results I'm getting from my workouts and the regimen I've put myself on and then to go out and not see it rewarded. Maybe "rewarded" is the wrong word to use but it's the best I can come up with.

It's not going to deter me from going out again but at the same time I'll know to go out with lower expectations...which will be hard to do since I didn't go out with any to begin with...