Jen Louise Veronica Hubley

This Friday, I went to a bar. Just, you know, for a change.

The bar was filled with jerkfaced jerks from over various bridges and through sundry tunnels, but the beer was good, and my friend who got there early scouted a mostly douche-free corner for us.

Unfortunately, one of the douches came in with us. You know, like those horror movies where the killer is in the house.

Here's what happened:

I sat down at the table, greeted everyone I knew and then introduced myself to the only person I didn't know, a guy we'll call Dick. Dick was very friendly at first, which is always lovely, although he did have a small staring problem, which is less so.

After a few beverages, we all started telling stories, as you do, mostly about men and women, because only one of us at the table was gay. (Out-of-towners: This is somewhat rare in New York.) At this point, Dick informed us that he sometimes uses prostitutes, which I thought was fascinating. I don't know anybody else who will admit to using prostitutes, and I was very curious to hear about the process of acquiring the services of such a person, and how this was arranged, and was it weird, and so on. I also wanted to know, of course, why such a thing was necessary or desirable.

"The thing is," Dick said. "I'm very shy. So it's hard for me to make the first move with girls."

"Unless you're paying them."

"Exactly."

I thought about this for a moment: "Well, you're talking to a bunch of strangers right now, and you seem fine. Is it just that you've been drinking, or what? What's the difference?"

"The difference is," he said, leaning over the table. "You're a little sexpot."

"Oh. Uh."

"I was just telling them all-" (sweeping gesture with the glass of beer) "-that you're really kind of sexy. A sexpot. Like this girl I knew in college."

"Yeah. Ha ha. Everybody knows someone who looks like me. Girl in college. Neighbor. Redheaded best friend on a sitcom-"

At this point, I was frankly babbling. It's supposed to be nice to be sex-ay, but I was mainly concerned that I'd wind up in pieces in the Dumpster out back. When I recovered sufficiently, I managed to ask him if he'd heard about the Madonna-Whore Complex.

"Oh, yeah!" he said. "Exactly!"

"So in this scenario, I am...?"

"The whore!" he said triumphantly.

And frankly, I felt bad for him. "Dick," I said, as gently as possible. "You will find that very few women will sleep with you if you call them whores. And if they do ... well, they'll probably take your wallet."