Weird Night

Tonight was a weird night.

We hit the bar this evening. It's not usually my scene, but wednesday nights are cheap wings night and I love chicken. So I was there. I met up with a bunch of friends, who I barely have energy or creativity to invent fake names for. (I've become aware that among some of my more familiar readers, he practice of guessing the pseudonyms is the game you play. I'm going to start giving fewer hints and just use names whether I've introduced them or not. Be confused.)
The waitress came by and asked if we wanted anything. To my shame, I didn't look up. I usually try to be friendly to wait staff; they have a hard job that i admire. But this time I was tired and just asked for a water. I looked up and recognized Maria, I girl i'd been tutoring for some extra cash. Weird. We had a brief conversation, but it was busy and every minute spent talking with me was a minute not spent serving customers who were actually going to buy booze. It was weird. To say the least.
I think I've always indulged myself with this fantasy that I can go to the places where the non-Christians are and relate to them and meet them and try to talk to them without my real life showing up. But I'm going to be recognized from the outside. I'm going to have that accountability.
it happened again when I was in line for wings. Behind me was a guy I'll call Felix. who used to be one of my supervisor's when I worked at a fast food joint last summer. He was a tad inebriate,d but he recognized me and we caught up. I was instructed to give him a call. I'm seriously thinking about it. But I never expected to meet so many people at the bar. I was beginning to have reservations about whether or not I was all that comfortable being seen there.
Either way, most of the people peeled off until it was only myself, Kermit, Bruce, Melody, and Brumhilda left. The girls wanted to dance pretty badly, and since there were a lot of creepy drunk guys around I was uninterested in letting them go off on their own. I'd be useless in a fight, but they don't call me "Hoss" for nothing. I can pretend to look intimidating. Long enough to usher a girl off the dance floor, anyway. So I went with them.
I am not an excellent dancer, but I tried to have fun. the other guys went nuts but soon left to get some air. Which left me as the sole protector for a good while. I didn't want to leave, really, but I wasn't enjoying myself. The more I listened to the music, and saw the people around me, the more I found myself in the background of people's drunken photos inevitably destined for facebook, the more crammed the dance floor got and deeper we were crowded into the corner, the less happy I was that I had come. I couldn't leave the girls there, and they seemed to still be enjoying themselves. But I became acutely aware of the increasingly untenable position I was in. Trying to reconcile my role as man of God with bar-dancing fool. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable.
Mercifully, the girls got tired and we left not too long after. But walking home in the cool summer air I couldn't help but wish I hadn't gone. I'm glad I did because I think that Kermit and Bruce on their own would've probably dropped the ball on being there for just-in-case purposes. But it wasn't a tonne of fun, and I think I shall decline the invitation in the future.
I think the contours of navigating how to be a "light of the world" while "mak[ing] every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him" is hard and has no easy answers. I heard and saw a lot of stuff I didn't want to see. But I also had opportunities to meet other people where they were and to be there for my sisters in Christ. So I don't know.