Just returned from reviewing People, a fantastic place in Wicker Park on Milwaukee. The staff is great, the owner is very personable, and the chef is talented — and very much fun. I had a great time.
I get really chatty with the staff while doing reviews. I’m not there to give a bad review — I’m only trying to educate people on how to have a good date in a fun place. Once I tell the owners/managers and staff that whatever I write will be positive, they pull out all the stops — not necessarily giving me free food/drinks — which is against Tribune policy — but in a personal way. The guards come down and I get to know them as people. It’s the best part of writing this column — getting to know more people.
The irony of this is that I was totally annoyed by another person that I met at the bar, and I don’t really know why. During my conversation with Matt, the chef, a couple sat down at the bar on the other side of me. They overheard me talking about RedEye, and asked me if I write for the paper.
The guy immediately started in on me — telling me that he needs relationship advice. I asked if he was “with” the woman that he was sitting next to. She shook her head violently, insisting that they had been friends for about three years. He went on to say that he’s in media and that we should connect. It was almost pushy in a way. And funny at the same time. I accused him of having bad pickup lines — because, essentially, that was a pickup attempt.
His friend and I had a conversation about how we feel about guys who have cheesy lines. She confessed that she liked cheesy. I asserted that I don’t. He chimed in to say that he was just being honest. I told him that the problem was more his tone than his message. What I didn’t share was that his message didn’t come across slimy — on the bad-pickup-continuum, I would consider him more on the goofy side than the slimy side.
So, apparently he does a radio show and is legitimately in media. I’ve never heard his show because I rarely listen to radio, but he suggested that I come on his show and asked if I do any community work. It doesn’t sound like our content aligns — his is more about social awareness, and mine is more about . . . well . . . frivolity, really. It’s serious, but it’s not that serious.
Then he asked me why I didn’t immediately want to network with him. Then he asked for my phone number, which I refused to provide, however I did provide the e-mail address that comes straight to the Blackberry, which is more than I give most people that I don’t know.
I was really put off by this guy, and I couldn’t figure it out at first. I can be a bitch from time to time, but I had to give myself a break on this one. Was I really being bitchy? I decided that, no, I wasn’t being bitchy. But he was being pushy!!
The bottom line here is that I don’t like pushy men — or pushy people in general. The best way to unleash my inner bitch is to become pushy.
I was trying to work and he came in, inserted himself into my conversation and then started making suggestions (demands) about who I should network with and what I should do with my time. And then I got caught up in it and began explaining myself — to a person that I don’t know. So, I instantly stopped — because if I don’t feel the need to explain myself to my parents who are responsible for giving me life, a stranger gets bupkiss — which of course made him think that I was standoffish.
I actually had a better conversation with his friend, whose profession is more in line with something that I would actually write about.
Pushy man KEPT talking, chastising me for preferring his friend to him. I wanted, SO badly, to say “You want relationship advice, buddy? I have four words of wisdom for you — shut the fuck up!”
But of course, if I do that, I’m the bitch. In fact, it’s a story-worthy account for him to pass along to his equally pushy friends. And it will sound something like this: “I met the girl who writes that G-Spot column in RedEye. Man, she’s a bitch!”
People like him take no responsibility for what they might have done to elicit the bitchiness. They don’t understand that their personalities might be pungent, and that others might be so desperate to get rid of them that they have to resort to drastic, unnaturally rude measures.
Oh well . . . I guess I’m going to have to get used to having the bitch reputation.
