A little further into the book, I go into how I confess an obsession with a young woman who, though she no longer worked there at the time, roomed with the female manager whom I confessed my obsession to, and she still worked an occasional shift and still frequented the place as a visiting friend and customer. Some months earlier, this same woman had hinted to me in a cruel manner that she did not want to date me.
So, after I confessed my obsession for this woman to the manager, I asked this same woman out. She didn't want to go out with me, but I was nice to her about it and all that. I thought that being nice might still give me a chance, but some weeks after I asked this woman out, and I thought things were going good with her, she acted kind of cold to me on the phone.
A few days later, the restaurant had its last two nights of business due to TABC issues. As my dishwashing shift began, I still fantasized about things going my way with this woman, but I also processed some rather ugly interactions with the female manager, this woman's roommate, who seemed to think she was really clever in dropping hints that this woman had taken up with some guy.
Later in my shift, Anita, someone I knew from high school and college, stepped up to greet me as I picked up a bus-tub from the outside deck. We exchanged phone numbers, and I went about my business.
A little later, some guy who knew the owners, and whom I saw talking a little to "Julie" on some previous night, stood at the bar. He asked me what was so special about the hummus. I explained to him the reason for the name, and went on my way.
Some time after that, Julie, the object of my desire, sat at the bar. The guy who asked me the question about the hummus sat a few chairs down at the other end of the short bar. Just as I was about to greet Julie warmly, Anita walks up to the bar. She said, "It was good to see you, Richard. You have my number and I have your number, call me soon. Okay?" I kind of relished the moment, smiled widely, and said, "Yeah, I will," and then Anita left.
I then turned to Julie and said, "Hi, Julie," as if I really liked her, because I did. She kind of gulped her red wine, exhaled and said, "Hi," as if she had to catch her breath. The guy who sat a few chairs over went over to Julie and started talking to her. They then sat together at a a table and talked.
Sometime later Julie said goodbye to everyone and left with this guy. I then realized that Julie had tried to set me up for a fall, but that Anita had thwarted her move. I, in the next logical thought, concluded that Anita was a special agent sent by the League to help me out of this jam.
The next night, the last night of business, was even busier than the previous night. At the beginning of the night, Julie sat at the bar and tried to play it off as if she'd won. She spent the entire night trying to throw this guy up in my face, so to speak, as they sat together with one of the guy's frat boy lookin' friends. Towards the end of the evening, the frat boy friend insulted Julie, and emotionally exhausted as I was, I let the guy know in nonverbal terms that I'd like nothing more than to just beat his ass.
I think Julie's new righteous boyfriend dumped her a few days later. The kind of game Julie tried to play with me was a pretty familiar one to me by the time this iteration of if went down in June, 1999, but it seems to be one that attractive young women never seem to tire of playing with me to this day. They lose pretty bad these days too.
I wonder how these guys these women try to throw up in my face feel about being used in such a manner? I get the impression that a fair number of these guys don't like this shit at all. Julie's boyfriend was one who willingly played at the outset, but some of them seem to get a rude awakening when they find out what's going on in the middle of one of these scenarios.
Anyway, I get a lot of bro love from some of these guys, if not all of them. I often get a lot of bro love from these types of guys, no matter how I know them. The Incels, that internet community of inexperienced, angry, frustrated men, has taken to calling these guys "Chads," and declared them their enemy. But, I guess I came up before any of that nonsense came around, and I don't know if I ever went as dark in my anger towards individual women or women in general as the Incels regularly display online or in violent acts in the real world.