Trying too hard

So yesterday afternoon I got together with an old friend of mine, we'll call him Joe (cause thats his name), and we decided to grab dinner then meet at my place to watch the Bears game.  Joe and I have been friends for over 25 years and we get together every couple months usually.  He's a college professor and during school his schedule is pretty tight.  He's been wanting to check out Tilted Kilt for awhile now, and since he offered to pay I was all for it.  :)

Now I had never been to one of these places before.  I've been told its like a Scottish Hooters, but since I've never been to a Hooters either (true story!) that didn't really resonate with me.  So I go in there and am instantly bedazzled by the sight of half-naked gorgeous women everywhere. Seriously, the wonderbra budget for these places must be off the charts.  Joe was already there so I took a seat and we ordered a couple beers.  Now this is where the "trying too hard" thing comes in.

Our server was simply gorgeous.  Really great looks, young, incredible body, the whole thing.  Absolutely the kind of woman who would never talk to me in any other situation.  I'm used to going to sports bars and having attractive waitresses be friendly but this was a different level of friendliness.  We took awhile to decide on our order so we kept asking her to come back (because we kept wanting to ogle her...yes, we're sick like that) and when she would come back to the table she would lean over to us, giving us up close views of her cleavage, and say things to us like "So, do you see anything you like?".  Yeah, she was really saying that.

Then after we placed our order she actually came and sat down with us.  Ok, now I felt like I was in a strip joint.  And I quit going to strip joints long ago because there's really no point in going.  Spend a lot of money, go home alone.  I can stay home, be alone, and save lots of money.  So she sits down and proceeds to engage us in all kinds of conversation for the next 10 minutes.  Don't get me wrong, it was nice to talk to a woman who looked like this.  But to me it was obviously a ploy for tips (considering we saw her doing this at her other tables and most of the other girls doing it too) and a pretty cheap one at that.  I really doubted that she was interested in my background (so I made one up), although I do have to admit I kind of giggled inside when she told me she moved away from her home state because all the girls there were ho's.  Yep, you showed them by working in a place that has you parading around half-naked and serving men alcohol!  Anyway....

When she told me she hated the Cubs AND Nascar I did ask feel compelled to ask her to marry me.  I got a "probably" as a response, which was good enough for me to turn to Joe and introduce him to "my future ex-wife".  She got a good laugh out of that.  But the whole thing felt kind of cheap and I felt like it was demeaning to her.  I listened politely as she told me about her life story (all 19 years of it).  She seemed nice enough in all honesty, but it almost felt like these girls were being used as low-grade prostitutes.  And the really bad part was there was no potential for a lapdance or anything, so it was really pointless on my end and I felt kind of used as well.

Not really sure where I'm going with all of this.  I was feeling kind of bothered by the way this whole thing was set up.  It really did have a strip club atmosphere in the way the girls worked the customers.  She was actually a really good waitress overall so she was going to get a good tip even without working the cleavage.  The food was actually pretty good too, though the tap beer was pretty pricey.  I don't know if I'm getting old or what, but I actually felt uncomfortable enough by the whole thing to not go back.