Here's a little story you guys may enjoy and relate to. I used to go to this art/music variety show thing here in town. Now don't start imagining Ed Sullivan and his plate spinners. It was more punk rock and modern art - hard to describe really. Anyway, I noticed this girl I had dated once there on several occasions. She was sitting at a table full of obviously single guys who were probably mainly there for her. Another woman I knew was also a regular and also seemed to always have a table full of single guys with her. The former was single, the latter, married. There were *never* any other females present and I never met the married woman's husband. He either didn't like the thing or she never invited him. A few months ago both disappeared. In June, the organizer sends out this sort of desperate sounding email about how attendance is flagging and people aren't buying drinks and they aren't having the event in June and the future is in doubt. This was not a big event on a good night. Maybe there were 60 people. I figure that the two women and their beta boys were about 15 of them.

I kept trying to work out how and why men would do this to themselves. You sit there. It's obvious that the other guys are there for the same reason. I actually used to sit with the married chick, hoping to meet her (obviously nonexistent) female friends. I hung around with the single one even after she friendzoned me for the same reason. Neither woman apparently tolerated much in the way of competition so it was a fool's game all along. So both quit the scene and now the producer can't keep the club filled. I would laugh, but I actually enjoyed it while it lasted. To think that the engine of the thing was largely two narcissistic women in their mid 30s (this is Portland, OR and they were both educated, slender, devoid of tats, and otherwise anomalous here) is amazing.