I love me some bartender

Lately I have discovered that I can generate a pretty big obsession for bartenders. It doesn't really matter if they are actually attractive (although they usually are) but i'm guessing it's just the fact that they serve me? And believe me I do realise how bad this sounds, because if I would be a man and say this about female bartenders, I would be CANCELLED!

(Bartenders with moustaches are peak BTW)

There was this one bartender on who I developed quit a crush on. I met him during a tumultuous time in my life which probably made everything worse. It all started on the night where a close friend of mine, let's call him Christoph, just broke up with his girlfriend, who also was a close friend of mine (not anymore lol) and we decided to go out on a Thursday night, to get some beers and distract his mind from the breakup.

Long story short about this breakup; she discovered she was bisexual and started to cheat on her boyfriend with someone she met on Bumble friends. Now just to make myself clear, I don't mind the fact that she decided she was gay because that can happen at all times and at all ages. But it was more the fact that she thought it was fine to fo cheat on Christoph just because she was doing it with a girl? Now I'm not sure that was the case at all and these are just my speculations. But I feel like she held on to her relationship with my friend just long enough to still have the experience of going to Thailand (a once in a lifetime travel destination for some) and then break up with him a week after... I was trying to stay supportive of her and let her handle it all because it didn't feel right for me to meddle into their relationship. But even after the break up, and even after he knew about "the other one" she was still not telling him the truth and I was having a hard time with that, as I still couldn't be honest to Christoph.

It eventually all exploded and the truth came out and that so called friend was angry at me because I wasn't able to "shut my mouth". But.... she was the one who was cheating?... After that I didn't hear much from her again. I did get much closer to Christoph, more than we already were and we still are in good contact. :)

But back to that one Thursday night. It was with another close friend of him, we were just strolling around in the city centre, going from bar to bar. The kind of bars I didn't particularly liked but we weren't there for me, so that didn't matter. We were having fun for the fact that it wasn't a good night for Christoph, we were encouraging him to already make a tinder account and we were taking pictures of him so he could already put them on his profile.

After a while we were going to another bar I had never been to before. But it seemed like the guys knew the place. We were basically the only ones there as it was a Thursday night. We were sitting outside on the terrace and I was sitting in a way that I could see inside the bar, aka see the bartender working. For the people that know me, I'm not shy to look at people, and at that point I think I was even staring a little but I didn't really care and had no shame about it. I asked my friends if they knew him or they knew how old he was, I was guessing he was around 30 years old or something close to that.

After a couple beers we decided to move places and try to find some food.

They went inside to pee first and I followed them in, but stopped at the bar, made eye contact and asked the cute bartender with the moustache how old he was. He asked me to guess first and I said what I said to my friends earlier;

"I'm guessing around 30 or 29?..."

" 30?? damn that's old, i'm 25!.. "

I had to laugh as he was only one year older than me at that time. we continued talking and for passersby it may seem like I knew what I was doing, and I probably looked very confident but I felt everything but!! When the guys came out the restroom they were laughing at the sight of me chatting up the bartender. But they gently waited outside and let me finish the conversation.

I don't actually remember what we talked about during that small talk, but I already knew he was studying architecture, and the bartending was his weekend job and that he had to bike 25 min home after work. He gave me his instagram after I asked for it and we said goodbye.

When I got some food in front of me 15 min later I decided I was going to text him, just to see what would happen.

" If you need a place to stay tonight, my place is only 10 min away"

Pretty bold move, I know.

"Those 10 min make it very attractive, but I am already kinda seeing someone at the moment so might not be the best timing"

Now that would have been a good moment to stop, I know that but I feel like it was all going too well to already stop now. Especially because I usually don't have those kind of balls to go talk to someone. I told him that that was disappointing and that I did think I had a chance tonight but that I understand him, and hope to see him again at the bar. He said the same, but we still continued texting after that, the same night, which made me kind of confusing and thinking I did maybe still have a chance.

I told him I was going home soon after the last drinks with my friends, he said he was closing up soon and going home after. It would have been smart from me to just go home at that time, as it was already almost 3 in the morning. But that's not what I did, I decided it was the perfect time to go sit on a bench near my place, in the dark and cold night. The funny , or unfortunate, thing is that I convinced him to come and join me instead of going home. In the last texts before he joined me, things were said that made me think I really stood a chance in being with him eventually. He said stuff like "I already saw you looking at me" "you have a really cute and infectious laugh" "If there wasn't anyone else I would Know!"

He eventually came over on the bench that night, just for a hug. He had very clearly mentioned before arriving that he wasn't going to come over at my place. But when he arrived we sat on the bench for like 2 hours I think? perception of time was a little hard at that moment, but I do remember seeing the first tram pass by and the first people going to work in the morning. He eventually left on his bike and went home and I went to mine after having talked for a loooong while.

Now for some of you the signs might have already been very clear at this point, but I decided I needed some more confirmation as the past night had been pretty fun and nice and different than other nights I had spent with other guys.

So I just decided to text him and ask him straight up how serious it was with that other person.

"Pretty serious as we are living together"

The shock when I read this the night after he said and did al he had said and done.

"But it hasn't been going very well lately so we'll see how it goes in the future"

The hope I felt when reading that next sentence, which again a lot of you might think, "Lise, what in the hell are you thinking".

But as I said earlier, I was just going through a rough period, and meeting the bartender felt like it might save me in some way. But obviously that wasn't the case. I now realise it might've actually made it all worse. And it's hard to think back on that time without feeling my heart break a little. I was mourning a close childhood friend of mine who died very unexpectedly, and it was only a week later that I met the bartender. I was ignoring how hurt I was by the loss, and focusing on a love by a random guy with a moustache that was never going to be reciprocated. I'm also realising now that just because I was so lost and hurt at that time, the "crush" on the bartender lasted way longer than it should have, because I just didn't know how to be or feel.

The funny thing is; after a year he broke up with his girlfriend (who had found me and texted me an angry message during the summer, which made me very confused because I hadn't seen the bartender for a couple of months at that time, but I of course still apologised to her because that was the decent thing to do) and their break up made me think it might've actually been because of me. And after coming by the bar again after a couple of times I realised it wasn't because of me at all haha! He was already seeing someone else, a colleague, who he probably also spent lots and lots of late nights with after working. But the ex-girlfriend was still blaming me apparently...

Bref, it was a messy year and I'm glad it's over now and that the crush is no longer crushing!

I also learned my lesson with bartenders and know I have to be careful around them.

Bisous,

Lise