What Does Not Kill Us Only Makes Us Stranger

So, it goes something like this: I frequent a certain bar to play pool and drink the tasty, tasty beer there. For the last two weeks or so, when I went to said bar, a certain very fetching barmaid (VFB) would give me free beers, free pool… We would chat, there were certain commonalities and certain differences, none of which I would call bad. My friends extolled me to ask her out. Fine.

This evening, I hiked to the bar (practice for Peru, took about an hour), chatted with VFB and again, some of the beers were free. I overheard a guy a few chairs down from me ask her out. VFB told him she was seeing someone. Hearing this, knowing my fate was sealed, knowing she would say the same to me, later, I said something like, ‘I don’t want to be a jerk, but are you seeing anyone?’

And she said she was seeing somebody. I had to hear it.

Strangely, I don’t feel the least bad about the whole thing. I asked her, she told me, no problem. Move on. Hmmm…

Odd though, about the beers…