Dear Digital Diary,

this is why I don’t look for my husband at the bar.

This past weekend, my best friend and I went out to a club in the most popular city in my home state. It was a Saturday evening, ten o’clock, in late August — essentially the perfect weekend to go out and have a little bit of fun.

The club we went to was anything but dead, which is my favorite. I’m an introvert at heart but there’s something about a sardine-packed, frat-basement-esque, sticky-floored club that gives me the rush that I guess most adrenaline junkies live for. For the most part, I just like to dance. And the music was gooood. Now, I’m particular about music. But the DJ had early 2000’s music blaring, and my best friend and I each had a vodka coke in hand.

We were both dancing, moving well outside the square that most people kept themselves in. The vodka kicked in and the hips began to do anything but lie, and we made it up the stairs and to the highest point of the dancefloor.

Here’s the thing: we were just dancing, being ourselves. We weren’t looking for guys. We were out to have a girls night. But we looked like fun and were dressed up. And if there’s anything I learned from my last relationship, it is that a man’s sexuality is his weakness.

Men are, inherently, sluts.

I know this may offend some, and if it does, think about why women are called sluts. Usually, it’s because they are dressed provocatively, or they’ve had multiple partners, or have an obsession with having partners.

And yet, a woman could just be dancing, and a man approaches.

Easy peasy.

This man was 22. I told him he was too young (I don’t date men who are the same age as my younger sister). And yet, he was persistent.

My best friend and I each got a free drink from him and his buddy. We could’ve disappeared after, but we didn’t because we wanted to dance, and the boys stuck around. He didn’t even dance. He was just holding his beer. At one point, he asked me why I was teasing him.

Ugh.

A woman can say no, and she’s a tease.

I told him my name was Rikki. My friend was called Daisy. I worked for the FBI. He believed me, at least the name bit. Somehow I got him to prove his age, and he took out his license. He’d do anything I said.

Him and his friend bought us another round of drinks. I didn’t want another one. His buddy drank it instead. They spent $35 on drinks for us. And we saw them talking to other women before they had their eyes set on us.

That’s a lot of money for a little bit of attention.

At 1am, the club closes. By 12:45, the lights were turned on and Rikki and Daisy had managed to have the boys trailing them. I’ll call the guy Will.

Will was trying to talk to me, asking me about if I found him attractive. I told him he looked like that one blond dude from H20: Just Add Water.

Will found sunglasses on the ground and gave them to me. Now, sober me wouldn’t touch floor sunglasses, but I put them on, and danced wildly to the songs that began to play.

I have rhythm.

Another guy noticed and told me I was pretty.

Will then had his arm around me.

All of the sudden, I was “his girl.”

Dear God, he didn’t even know my name.

I told the other interested man that I wasn’t, that I belonged to nobody. Drunk me thought that was a badass comment.

It wasn’t really, but it’s true.

Will, and other men in bars, are so quick to hit on women, and then claim them, even if it’s just for a few hours. For those few hours, a woman next to them is an ego boost.

For us women, we just got free drinks.

And that’s the funny part.

I wasn’t there looking for a husband. I was there to dance.

He was the one who turned dancing into an audition for his attention.

By the way, Will and his friend found us on the curb eating grilled cheese. I asked him if he voted. He made a comment that he didn’t like Jews. He and his friend got in their Uber and my best friend and I sat on the curb.

That’s the thing: the men in bars are dicks.

Some of them have girlfriends. Some of them are searching for boyfriends while calling gay men slurs, and some of them think that not voting will get a hot woman to be interested in him.

And somehow, after all of that, I’m the slut?

So no, the men in bars don’t have a chance to date me.

Call me a slut, but I feel it’s only fair to at least get a drink for my troubles of entertaining them at all.