September 27, 2023
Ok folks, our first installment of Rebecca’s Love Equation is going to be a recap of a day in the DC for Oktoberfest. Two weekends ago, a friend and I took to the big city to see if we could find eligible bachelors in the Nation’s Capital. Here’s a quick run down:
10:45 Brunch at Republica Cantina. Brunch is a strong word because we wanted street tacos from Eastern market and didn’t want to “spoil our lunch”, so we ended up eating chips and queso with a couple of stellar spicy margaritas. We were tipsy by the time we left. 10/10 highly recommend, very cute place in the NoMa neighborhood. My waiter was wearing a Bass Pro hat, but was very confused when I asked him if he likes to fish. No eligible bachelors in sight.
12:00 Wunder Garten. Hands down my least favorite commute of the day. It was just a ten minute walk between the restaurant and the Biergarten, but on the way, a man shouted at us “Y’all don’t own the sidewalk, MOVE OVER.” Being the well-bred, and easily intimidated women we are, we moved over a bit (mind you, this was a huge ass side walk and we were not in this man’s way at all) and said nothing. Then as he passed us he looked over his shoulder and shouted “Yeah I said it, go and call your boyfriend and tell him.” You see sir, that’s the thing. I don’t have a boyfriend or any man in this metropolitan area who gives one damn about my safety, yet here you are, screaming at all 5’0″, 125 lbs of me on the street like an absolute lunatic. He was carrying what looked like the entire inventory of the local TJ Maxx, so I guess his arms were tired. Another stranger on the street made up for it when he passed us (slowly) on his bike and said “Man I don’t understand. Y’all are out here looking fine as hell and these white men won’t talk to you.” We both instinctively yelled back “RIGHT?! THANK YOU!” Anyway, Wunder Garden was my favorite stop of the day. This place is so beautiful. It is covered in plants and has all kinds of festive seating areas. They had Barbie boxes set up where people could pose like a doll. I opted to have my picture taken in a giant flower. I drank two orange crush vodka drinks because they didn’t have any sours on the menu. 10/10. No eligible bachelors.
1:30 Eastern Market. We took the bus to Eastern Market so we could stop by my favorite taco stand for some tacos. No eligible bachelors except for a man who I think was trying to hit on my friend and offer her some flowers he bought in the market but we rudely ignored him because we thought he was trying to sell them to us. Oops. 10/10 for the tacos. No eligible bachelors that didn’t look like flower salesmen.
3:00 Blue Jacket. Our next stop was the Blue Jacket brewery in Navy Yard. Look. There was exactly one good looking man in that place who didn’t appear to be there with his wife and small children, and he was on a date with some woman. After a day of not see any straight men with potential (and many many drinks), this was apparently enough to throw me into a blind rage, asking hard hitting questions to my friend like: “How the hell did she get a date with the last single man in DC?”, “What’s she got that I don’t?!” and “Why are there so many f**king children here? That man just paraded that child around this brewery like he was a f**king prodigy and then handed him back to his wife – heaven forbid she get to enjoy her beer and sandwich even though she’s been watching that f**king kid all day.” You get it. Completely rational and sober thoughts coming from me. After some potato skins and a giant glass of water, I felt better and we were off to the next stop. 8/10 for the food and atmosphere. No eligible bachelors.
5:00 Dacha Beer Garden. Our final planned stop of the day was the Dacha Beer Garden in Navy Yard. We walked in and saw a lot of people in the tent, a few even dressed up in their Oktoberfest attire. I ordered a sour that tasted like a granola bar, and we were pretty quickly approached by a man named Frank. He was wearing these sunglasses that he had pulled down onto the bridge of his nose so he could look over them to talk to us. He was nice? I guess? I told him about my plan to go to football bars on Sundays to meet men, and he seemed pretty sure it wouldn’t work because those were not “men of substance”. Frank was pretty caught up on people of “substance”. He’s one of these guys who talks a lot about how his job used to be “Call of Duty in real life”. Now, I don’t know everything and maybe Frank has killed a thousand men with his bare hands or something, but I know a few men who used to do “Call of Duty in real life” and one thing they never talk about in bars with strangers is how they used to do that. When I mentioned to Frank that I live in Northern Virginia, I might as well have said “Siberia” because he had the same reaction. He’s just a…what’s the word…dingus?
His friends showed up after he kindly bought us both drinks. Two of the friends seemed so drunk that weren’t really sure what was going on. The other friend was a man who was roughly a million feet tall. I can’t remember his name. He was trying to talk to me about his job in IT, but I was yelling up to him like Prince Charming yelling up at Rapunzel in that tower, and I don’t think he heard a lot of what I said, and I sure as shit didn’t hear him. Frank told me that tall-man is a math genius and makes a lot of money – a real man of substance. At one point, Frank wandered over to talk to some cute blondes who were dressed up in matching Dirndls. They looked adorable and pretty, I loved their costumes. When Frank returned to our table, he invited us to follow him and his friends to their next spot of the night – an outdoor bar called The Cove. I asked him genuinely if he’d rather invite the cute dirndl girls, because I knew that neither me nor my friend were really attracted to any of these men. He said “No, those are just a couple of bimbos.”
Bimbos! Because they are pretty with blonde hair with their boobs out? Because they are dressed up and having fun on a Saturday? My shirt was way more revealing than the dirndls these girls were wearing. Why were they bimbos but we weren’t? Because we each have brown hair? Because we were the flavor of the moment and every girl he’s not talking to in the moment is a bimbo? I know I spent the whole day trying to find eligible bachelors, and Frank was as eligible as they come – not bad looking, seemed to have a good job. But I can’t abide by this attitude that all pretty girls are bimbos and that men who watch sports aren’t “of substance”.
I think this way of negging all of the people around you, or shit talking others to make yourself seem more attractive is pretty rampant in dating, especially in the bar scene. I’ve met people like Frank who have strong opinions on what does or doesn’t indicate that someone is smart or worth speaking to, and what does or doesn’t make a woman a bimbo. I’ve met people like the man who told me that a beautiful woman was “like talking to a brick wall,” to try to get my attention by putting her down. I’ve had men chastise me for not traveling enough or eating the right foods – “Girl, when are you going to start LIVING?” I even had one man criticize my posture on Saturday night. He brought it up in front of a crowd like he was talking about the weather, and then seemed baffled that I didn’t like that. It is an absolutely BANANAS way to interact with the world, in my opinion. You go through all this effort to look nice to go out, put on your cologne, then go out in the world to try to present the most confident, put-together version of yourself – only to find that confidence by tearing down other people. Out loud. For everyone to hear. And not based on their character or actions (like the way I’m judging Frank right now), but based on their harmless hobbies like watching football or wearing costumes to Oktoberfest, or not living in a sky rise apartment in DC or not sitting up straight. Go find some people of substance to talk to and leave bimbos like us alone, Frank. 10/10 for Dacha beer and atmosphere. No eligible bachelors upon further inspection.
Justice for the bimbos. For all of us.
7:30 Home. We both had tummy aches by the time we left The Cove (a nice spot on the river front in Navy Yard, lots of young single people, probably absolute hell when it rains). I was in bed by 8:30 and had to keep my bottle of Tums on my bedside table all night.
It was a perfect day. 10/10. No eligible bachelors.
I am still collecting challenges and reccomendations for Rebecca’s Love Equation. Please email us at rebeccasloveequation@gmail.com or drop some recommendations at this link.
Cluelessness is the Mother of Invention 