I arrive at the bar a few minutes early. The place is packed but I slip into a corner table high enough to see out across the crowd. Twenty and thirty-somethings fill this place, and I can’t help but be drawn into the different hopeful storylines unfolding across the room. In a place where very little can be heard above the music and the noise of the crowd, it’s fascinating—almost erotic—to watch body language begin to speak the things where words might fail. Old fashioned in hand, I wait and watch.
She barely hears his joke but still laughs, brushes her hair back and playfully touches his forearm. Another man calls out his drink order, puffs up his chest and strikes his best alpha pose behind a group of women he’s been eyeing for the past 10 minutes. A woman gives a lingering glance in a man’s direction only to coyly look down when his eyes find hers. She tucks her hair behind her ear and pretends to be interested in what her friends are saying. There’s this palpable but unspoken sense of seduction beneath the surface here, where eyes talk and intentions become clear with gazes held too long.