Normally on Sunday nights I'm snuggled cozily in my living room alongside Hank, watching Battlestar Galactica, and making Scrabble moves on the laptop. Last night, however, I actually went out.

Yesterday was my friend, Bao's, birthday, so an informal party was held at Fly Bar, a hip beer and sake joint here in SF. I hadn't been to Fly before, in fact, I haven't gone to hang out in any sort of bar in a years. This was long overdue.

I strolled into Fly with Pablo and immediately noticed that I was the least cool person in the room. Thankfully this is a normal state for me. In fact, it's the same situation in my living room during my normal Sunday nights. There were just more people this time.

Bao is a good guy and a fun set of folks had gathered to help him celebrate his birthday. Bao is also, I learned that evening, a smooth mover with the ladies. After receiving a box of cookies as a present, Bao eased out of his seat and glided over to a table occupied by a couple of young ladies. We couldn't hear what he was saying, but apparently the combination of birthday cookies and Bao's charm was unstoppable. Within minutes one of the ladies was on his lap, and soon he brought them both back over to our table.

I was impressed.

Back when I was single, I did sometimes go out to bars and clubs and whatnot, and clumsily attempt to meet women. Usually this consisted of me hanging with my computer programmers homeys as we watched the brave programmer du jour attempt to break out of his comfort zone and approach a woman. This was always entertaining and rarely successful. Over the several years that I played this game, I got two dates out of it. Out of those two, only one of them would have slept with me, but she turned out to be both annoying and unattractive. Even a desperate computer programmer can occasionally summon some standards when he sobers up.

Anyway, I was very impressed with Bao's moves. He was as graceful with the ladies as he is with dolphins. When Hank dumps my ass, Bao will be my coach.