Beers and boys ...

I joined a pool league about five weeks ago. A team was looking for a player for a short season. It was once a week ... Thursday nights. It's a co-ed league with many more men than women. I am the only woman on our team.

I am also a people-watcher. I like to hang back and I'll usually hone in on couple of people and watch what they do and how they interact with different people. In an environment such as this -- where egos are flying high -- it was quite interesting, but also reminded me what scuzballs men can be.

Society as a whole is pretty shallow. Initial judgments are made based on what you look like, and most people put that away as soon as the conversation starts. But there are some for which this runs much deeper.

We were playing a team that had only one woman on their team as well. The first two games were all guys. Then the schedule was magically set up so that I played the other chick for my first game. She's pretty plain, blonde, but had boobs and dressed so that they were definitely her prominent feature. I am about to walk up to the table, when I hear my teammate say, "Battle of the Breasts." I said, "There's no battle here." I go to the table, introduce myself, lose the flip and as I am racking the balls, I say to her, "Isn't it ironic that we play eachother first?" She replied, "Yeah, like that was an accident or something," and we laughed it off. She was pretty friendly, right up until she realized I was about to kick her ass on the table. And did.

Then I had to play the captain of their team. He was bantering back and forth with one of his players, and that conversation got ickier and ickier, I had to walk away before I lost my lunch. Guys are so weird. I lost the flip ... again ... and racked the balls. He broke. Sunk 4 balls -- two solid, two stripe. He picks his poison, and runs out the rest of his balls, but misses the 8. He obviously knows what he's doing, has good cue control, good speed control, and knows the game. Missing that 8 was quite uncharacteristic for him because it was not a particularly difficult shot. But, at this point, as anyone would, he was probably feeling pretty confident. I get up and shoot, run the balls out and make the 8. I think I surprised him.

Later on, I hear blondie say something like, "I'd rather be dead than fat." I don't know what or who she was talking about, but decided she wasn't talking about me, and just felt sorry for her. If she was talking about me, I still feel sorry for her.

Next game, I am playing one of their other guys, when my teammate is on the table next to me and is about to play blondie. I hear him say to her, "If I win, can I play speedboat?" I was embarrassed for him. He lost the game.

One of my other teammates ... obviously distracted ... lost his game against her as well. He ended up staying later to "redeem himself" against her. There's just nothing to say there. I ... nevermind.

I ended up winning 4 and losing 1 ... I missed a stupid shot and quickly sold out to one of the better shots on their team.

So after it was all over and we won (I don't know what the final score ended up to be, but apparently this was the "team to beat" ... so much so that our own captain stood down and had all of us play instead), I was encouraged to follow a few of the guys. Turns out they were going next door to brag. Brag! Are you kidding me? Then they were proudly marching over to our home bar to brag there, too, but I headed back and sat that one out. I guess it helps that I don't know many of the people they are bragging to.

So I ended up staying for another hour or so, enjoying some conversation with "speedboat" guy and talked to a couple of guys on the other team. I don't know if this is the environment I'm after, but it was fun for a bit. We'll see what happens.