Out at a great bar last night with an excellent DJ in the basement dance floor. Opening sets for my cousin who was in town and needed some post-breakup support.

Overall, I was very, very good for the night - opening sets, pivoting to him, and distracting any obstacles. I easily could have closed, but wanted to get him some attention. But that's not the point.

So the place is generally very cool and positive - the crowd is chill and just there to dance and mingle. It's not trashy, sloppy, spring break, or Jersey.

So I open a set of 4 (8,8,7,4), get one of them (8) with my cousin, and start chatting with the rest. They're at the bar, I'm on the side, and all of a sudden I feel a splash as a beer comes flying at one of the girls (8). I have no idea where it came from because the place is packed, but apparently they were fighting with some other girls. Weird. I share a shrug about it with a guy next to me, and move on.

A bit of time goes by, I see some girlfriends come downstairs, chat with them a bit - my cousin is smitten as they are 8s or 9s depending on the day, but both are taken. Fun to dance with, and are just generally cool. I then open a 3 set (7,6,6.5), chat up one (7) and find out she coaches girl's golf. My cousin golfed in high school - it's a tenuous connection, but sure, why not. I make the introduction, and go off to her friends, one of whom is particularly intrusive, trying to keep her group in check. I talk to her, doing some slight kino to put myself between her and her friend. It looks like a good match has been made, but alpha friend keeps looking over. Conversation is clearly not enough. So I ask her to dance, being careful to position her with her back to my cousin, who is doing very well at this point - good laughter, IOIs, textbook.

We're dancing, I'm getting decent response, but I'm not sure if I'm attracted to this girl as she doesn't have a particularly great personality - she's protective, which is fine, but I can't tell if she's socially calibrated to be cool like normal people, or if she's crazy. Kino's good, we're laughing at dance moves, I'm being gregarious and friendly to an AFC who has found himself alone in the middle of the dance floor... it's all fine. I talk with her some more, turning the subject to "So, did you see? There was some kind of fracas here earlier... some girl had a drink thrown at her."

She responds, "Yeah, the bitch deserved it."

There's about a millisecond where my mind is able to get out the thought "Wait..." when yet again I feel a drop, recognize it as liquid and think "Oh." as the rest of the drink hits.

Turns out my girl was the one who threw the first drink. I got to be collateral damage again. I grab a stack of napkins off the bar, hand a few to a very confused AFC, dry off my arm, and turn my attention to the girl. She accepts my help in drying her off - technically a great chance for kino, but at this point I'm just laughing to myself and have no interest whatsoever. I look up and see my cousin has managed a k-close, and I head off to join some friends.

Not long afterwards I see the two groups (minus my cousin's target) have at it, with guys lunging in to separate them.

Just a shout out in solidarity to all the wingmen who have to put up with utter ridiculousness for the cause.