The Thin Line Between Love and Haight

My weekends have become a little boring. That's likely because I work Saturday and Sunday nights and generally retain my weekend days for chilling out and getting things done at home. So I miss some obvious evening socializing opportunities and spend a lot of the daytime alone. Not so much today because in a few hours I'll be headed to Chris' afternoon birthday poker party, but usually it's nothing but me-time. Not that I'm complaining. Given that I spend most of my week running around non-stop, I appreciate the down time.

However, Friday nights are a different story. Since I don't have to be at work until 5 p.m. on Saturdays, I can do whatever I want Friday evenings with no fear of being overly tired the next morning. Last night I grabbed dinner in the Haight with Jack, who is moving to New York at the end of the month. All of my friends are funny, but Jack may win the prize for consistently being able to reduce me to tears due to laughter. One time, I actually paid him a dollar for a joke because I was convinced he should make money for being so funny.

That sounds lame, but it's true.

Anyway, we giggled and guffawed over North African food at Massawa for the first part of the evening, after which we wandered over to Favorite Bar 2 for cocktails and live music. The band at Favorite Bar 2 was pretty good, but their mics weren't turned up enough. So it was hard to hear the vocals. They were entertaining just the same. While still at dinner, Jack and I got to talking about what we each had expected when moving to San Francisco. I've already written about my own expectations on this space. As for Jack, he told me that while planning his migration from the East Coast, he seriously had anticipated that he would stumble upon bikini-clad "hot Asian chicks" sunbathing in Golden Gate Park, who would call him over as he jogged by so they could tell him how cute they found him to be.

Seriously.

Now, Jack admitted to me his perception of what San Francisco life would be was, in fact, pathetic, and I generally dismiss anything he says about women. But on more than a few occasions, he has insisted that, when it comes to the opposite sex, all men think just like he does. Really? Do all of you boys believe that "hot Asian chicks" don bikinis to sunbathe in one of the foggier parts of the City just so they can step off the pages of a porno magazine and hit on passing men? If so, I have many more questions.

Obviously, Jack has gotten over his Golden Gate Park fantasy, and he now is genuinely looking forward to meeting a bunch of "sarcastic, hateful" women in New York. Whether that's any more realistic, it's an expectation better suited to his personality. I love Jack to death, but I also wish the women in New York luck.