Hooters

Is it ever possible for a waitress or bartender to truly be interested in one of their customers? Are their intentions in conversing with you solely to get a better tip out of you? These are questions I ask my self occasionally and found myself asking again on Saturday night. 95% of the time when I experience a waitress or bartender being friendly or slightly flirtatious I can immediately tell that they're just working me for a better tip. I'm ok with this. They're going to get 15-20% out of me regardless unless for some unforeseen reason they decide to hook it up with a free drink or two. There are those rare occasions, however, where I cannot tell if the flirtatious vibes are authentic or not.

Saturday night was just such an occasion. First of all, we were at Hooters, which automatically tipped off my suspicion radar. These ladies are trained professionals at personalizing their way into your wallet. Anyways, I was sitting at the bar with my friend Alex enjoying some wings and a beer, when the bartender broke down my wall of suspicion in a matter of just a few minutes. A true southern bell in orange shorts stood in front of me recapping all the highlights of college football from the entire day. Needless to say I was infatuated at this point. It wasn't until after we had been there for an hour or so and she had stopped to talk on a number of occasions that I began to wonder "what if". Eventually it was time to go and of course I was too big of a pansy to ask for her number, but in hind sight the effort would have more than likely been futile.

Maybe she was just trying to up her tip by talking to me. Maybe we were the least creepy guys at the bar. Maybe I had some funny things to say and it livened up her night about. But could there have been a small chance that she was actually interested? When do you know? How can you tell? These are answers I need. If not to go back and talk to Patricia, at least for future reference when this rare occasion might happen again.