Charming, but single

Thursday night was fun -- I went to a favorite bar of mine for a night of low-priced beer for law students. (One of my dear friends and regular drinking partners is in law school. This works out well -- I'm currently screening applicants for the position of "my friend from med school" and "my friend the publishing maven." Always thinking about the future.) My friend is kind of "seeing" a fellow law student who happens to be quite well connected in our mid-sized Southern city. (Side note -- "seeing" is one of the many euphemisms us chicks use because we must label things, even when it's probably too early to do so. "Seeing" means you've been on at least one formal date and informally spent time with a guy. "Dating" means you've been on several dates, but aren't yet using a possessive term, such as -- gasp! -- "boyfriend." This causes much unneeded confusion and stress.) Back to the boy -- he's attractive and charming and very smart, the kind of guy who can go from discussing various aspects of pending current events to telling you a stupid, yet funny, joke with ease. Great for discourse. And cute. And has good taste in music. And drives a nice car. Of course my friend thinks she's not good enough for him. "Out of my league," she told me when he left to use the restroom. (Mind you, the boy clearly digs her, is flirting like a madman and casually finding reasons to touch her. The latter is, in my mind, one of the most telltale signs that someone's interested. Maybe that's just me.) I'm more than a little bit jealous of this great guy, but she's a good friend and well deserving of a good man. (Also, it's too early to be terribly jealous. He's got plenty of time to screw it up.) So we had fun. Buckets of beer for six bucks. We smoked too many cigarettes, almost always the sign of a good night. Unfortunately, none of our other good friends came, which made me the extra girl. I don't mind being the extra girl on really fun nights, but it tends to make me feel like I must perform. When you're the extra girl hanging out with one or more couples, you're constantly aware that at any moment the others may decide that they could just ditch you and have special happy adult alone time. Luckily, I'm quite accustomed to being the odd girl out in these situations. It's a role I probably fill too well. I pull out funny stories and jokes, and act goofy and funny. Secretly, I sort of hope that this not-quite-over-the-top jester role will net me something useful, like an introduction to a nice male friend of one of the couples involved. Not so on most occasions, although I do have quite a reputation of being the fun-loving gal pal who gets along with her friends' lust objects, which I guess isn't bad. Also, I get a lot of free drinks this way. And free drinks ain't ever bad.