Today, I caught up with one of my oldest girlfriends for happy hour. I hadn’t seen her in three weeks. After incredibly, mind-numbingly enervating two long days at work – a project gone awry, one full day turning the ship around, and the following day attempting to get into the mind of a client for a proper deliverable, I just wanted a drink. I’d been overstressed at work, working over-time, getting home around 8. No time to get online to de-stress or distract myself with the foibles of social life. Just work and publish. It was only fitting that we pick an innocuous local spot, Friday’s. I got off on time, met her up, and ordered an icy glass of Blue Moon with a healthy chunk of bobbing orange. We sipped and scarfed down wings (more like I did) while talking.

In the corner of my eye, I spotted two Asian men in their early thirties, probably of Chinese descent, awkwardly standing in predictable black overcoats, clutching draft beer. They stood awfully too close to us for comfort that I kept getting distracted mid-conversation. And no, I didn’t find them remotely attractive. One of them was bookish with a pair of glasses and an awkward grin, while the taller one was just obtuse. ‘Obtuse’ is not the most contemporary way to describe someone, but he just looked like an odd-looking, wiry geometric shape. After a few minutes passed, and they kept eying our table, eventually the wiry one bee-lined straight to me and asked if we were “leaving anytime soon.” How charming. I reassured him that we were. “We wanted to take over this table after you.” My friend seemed to pay no mind to this exchange, and our conversation continued. I ended up taking a bathroom break, she asked to take the last wing – taking very slow bites out of it – and then alternately went to the bathroom; all of this occurred under the red-hot glare of – not two – but three Asian men, who obviously had problems learning how to control their shameless compulsion to stare.

As my friend took her time in the bathroom, out of courtesy, I pulled out my phone and began calling my sister and her boyfriend, back-and-forth. No answer. In addition, I judiciously began stacking our plates. How painfully awkward. Eventually, I sat counting my fingers. I grew self-conscious.

Eventually, one of their newer dork squad additions shimmied over close to our high-riser table and slammed his glass down hard on my table. Expletives began shooting off in my head. We hadn’t even left yet, and the guy was already showing dominance over our table? I became defensive in my head over why we two girls had no rush to leave. I understand when three guys show up at a bar looking for a place to sit – but calling tabs on a table and getting bitter over the girls occupying those seats is just salty. Before I could glare at them, my friend finally returned, and I decided, once and for all, it’s not worth it. These guys can have their stupid seats; obviously they have nowhere better to go since they decided to wait around like buffoons for a table at a bar during the busiest hour. Instead of giving them an earful of how childish their entitlement to our table is, or how we’ve decided to stay an hour longer, I put on my coat and walked out the door with my friend.

Tempers flair up all the time, whether it’s over spilled coffee, or a spouse letting you down. If you can’t learn to just roll with the punches – like two slow eaters – how are you going to react to more stressful things in life, like aneurysms and taxes? Impatience and dominance in men repulse me. All women, regardless of their relation to you, deserve respect and courtesy, not just wives and girlfriends. More than anything, conditional treatment of women upsets me the most; I doubt these guys treat their girlfriends – if they have any – with such brutishness.