The Off Seasoner:

I arrived in Barcelona in April of last year ready for spring break. I had heard that it was a fun, artsy college town. I was imagining topless sunbathing on the beach and a distinctly European bohemian vibe. What I discovered is that Barcelona is very cold in April and almost more insulting, so overrun with Americans that no one would speak to me in Spanish.

This of course did not stop me from having an absolutely wonderful time. I was fortunate enough to be traveling with my good friend Brittany. We discovered the culinary joys of oysters and cava, red vermouth with sparkling water, and the world of eating too many tapas late into the night. At times Barcelona seemed to be a living monument to the architect Antoni Gaudí. We toured the famous La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell. We traveled outside the city, to the Montserrat Monastery set in the beautiful and misty mountains surrounding the city. I traveled even further for a day trip, going up the coast to visit a small fishing village and an ancient medieval castle.

But none of this is what I actually want to write about, because there was one night that took such a strange turn that I am still trying to understand exactly what happened, and why. Brittany and I were ready for a fun night out. We didn’t know anyone in town and wanted to meet people. Two cute girls in a party city looking to have some fun on vacation. I was wearing a short, tight skirt and high heels, she was wearing a tiny pink top. We went to a flamenco show, and then yet another tapas dinner. We wandered into what was supposed to be an active square for bars. We started talking to a group of young people drinking in the park, bumming cigarettes off of them and shooting the shit. We passed through one bar before deciding on a gin bar at the corner of the square.

We found a table outside, gin and tonics fancied with rosemary and grapefruit in hand. It was cool, but not cold. Shortly after, two guys approached us, asking if they could share the table. If I was alone I would have said no. I felt uneasy but figured it was nothing we couldn’t handle. These guys immediately seemed lame, in their mid to late 40s, wearing Armani polo shirts and kakis with a strangely desperate vibe. But you never know, we were trying to meet people and at least maybe it would make for a good story.

We gave them the go ahead and as they were sitting down, one guy, who I will refer to as the bald ring leader for reasons that will soon become apparent, turned to us and said you are going to regret this. He was joking but it is still a weird thing to say. I already do I replied, either out loud or in my head, not joking.

They sat on the far end of the table, when shortly after four of their friends joined them, borrowing chairs from other tables and crowding Brittany and I out, completely taking over our table. They conversed amongst themselves for awhile. Brittany and I continued chatting with each other. The guy next to her, a near identical copy of the rest of his friends, kept looking over at her, waiting for an opportunity to interrupt our conversation and get her attention.

Emboldened after drinking, he managed to awkwardly barge into our discussion, and it was all downhill from there. Their group dynamic immediately seemed off. Most of the men were quiet observers, with the guy sitting directly next to Brittany and the bald man at the far end of the table dominating the interaction.

I tried to get them to tell me what they were doing in Spain. Business, vacation? But I could only get vague answers out of them. Their whole attitude stunk of pretending to be richer and more important than they actually were. All I saw were lonely, desperate men willing to do anything to avoid looking middle age in the face.

After some boring one liners and generic chit chat featuring such classics as: Where are you from? and What are you doing in Barcelona? And who could forget the ever plausibly innocuous Can we buy you a drink? They finally arrived at what we would later recognize as the fatal blow. What do you do for work?

I wasn’t engaging with them as much as Brittany, who is a more open person in general, so I was more of an observer than she was. When they asked us what we did for a living I could tell they lost their footing a bit when Brittany replied that she has a PhD in Environmental Engineering and works as a Senior Research Scientist. Discouraged but not defeated, the ringleader probed more into the company she works for.

She explained they leverage next generation sequencing data and bioinformatics for infectious disease research. Part of what they do uses machine learning. She wasn’t responsible for that area of the project and didn’t claim to have any expertise, but as soon as the bald ring leader heard machine learning, he became triggered, and we had ourselves a man on a mission.

How could a beautiful woman, dressed in a sexy, or dare I say even slutty outfit, be worthy of respect? From Brittany’s perspective, he attacked her to preserve his deep-seated misogyny. It seems unlikely that he was even aware of what he himself was doing and why.

Whatever the reason, he desperately, seriously needed to prove that Brittany didn’t know what she was talking about in front of his friends. Brittany and I had different experiences as this situation developed. For her, it is normal to have a spirited discourse about different scientific topics. She is used to being challenged in her field. That is part of the scientific process. She initially felt that he was challenging the idea, not her personally. And at least at first, she didn’t feel that he was attacking her, she understood the interaction to be just talking about ideas.

Unlike Brittany, I immediately felt uncomfortable, because I registered his attitude as unduly hostile towards her and I was become more and more annoyed. This guy was loud, belligerent, and dominating what was supposed to be a fun night out with a good friend that I don’t get to see often. But I didn’t know how to stop what was already set in motion.

For one, I wasn’t sure what Brittany wanted. I know that she sometimes enjoys having combative conversations in a way that I do not, so I didn’t want to shut down the situation without checking in with her first. If I was alone, or with a different kind of friend, I probably would have just walked away. But it may not have been as easy as I would like to think it was. I tried to chime in at one point, and the ringleader turned to me and shut me down with a terse Machine learning doesn’t have anything to do with communications.

He had completely misunderstood what I did for a living, and wanted to discredit me and undermine my confidence. Of course, even if I did work in something related to communications, the obvious fact is that you don’t have to work in a field of study to understand and have an opinion on something and share that opinion as part of a discussion at a bar.

I could have said something, could have argued, pointed out the logical fallacies in his dismissive responses. But again, why? And wouldn’t that put me in the same impossible position that Brittany was already in? Of trying to defend myself or at least reason with someone who was beyond reasoning, whose only goal was to feel superior? At one point I tried to convey this by whispering in her ear, You don’t have to prove yourself to them.

I finally reached a breaking point and interrupted the only way possible to get a word in edgewise, by repeatedly yelling over the loud bald ringleader. I asked him What was your PhD in? What was your PhD in again? Do you have a PhD? Again, I don’t believe that you need a PhD to have an educated opinion on a topic, but I wanted him to back off. I was frustrated and wanted to beat him at his own game. I recognized that this was someone who very likely only cares about pedigree. I was trying to get him to understand how ridiculous he sounded. But it didn’t work. After some haranguing on my part he did respond to me, momentarily sheepish, that he didn’t have a PhD, before turning right back around on Brittany.

For her, this was the moment that she realized this asshole wasn’t attacking her ideas, he was attacking her. He was hell bent on at least proving her wrong and at best making her look stupid with a gotcha moment, because in his mind there was no way that she could be as hot as she is and still know more than him.

From my perspective, upon discovering that we were gainfully employed and well educated, whatever the reason, they decided to attack. To me, it felt like they were using negging, a classic “pickup artist” technique. This is when a man emotionally manipulates a woman by giving her backhanded compliments in an attempt to undermine her confidence, putting the woman in a position of feeling she has to win the approval of the man. With this group, however, they quickly shifted from curiosity to animosity. There was no compliment, only the backhand. They became completely aggressive without the flirtatious element. Which leaves me still wondering, Were they assholes trying to flirt in a manipulative way and failed miserably, or were they just assholes?

What I wish I had done is tell Brittany the truth, that I was really bored. And I wish I had told her directly, in front of them, and asked her if she wanted to go. They would have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t smart enough to be engaged by the conversation, regardless of the reality of the situation. But what I keep coming back to, if I cared what they thought of me at all, if I didn’t want to look stupid in their eyes, even a little bit, doesn’t that mean they had already won?

Eventually things became so combative and unpleasant that we did leave. It took longer than it should have because I was wearing shoes that were killing my feet and couldn’t get an Uber to pick us up from that location at that time. We were both agitated and I hobbled along, trying to keep up with my tall, speed walking friend. We overpaid for a Tuk Tuk ride back to our part of town. We walked the last couple of blocks to where we were staying as my shoes cut into my feet and Brittany made a chaotic SnapChat chronicling our misadventure.

We talked over each other about how strange it all was. We wanted to know,What did they get out of it? And what were they trying to do? Just piss off two hot girls? Did they think we would fall in love with them or fuck them after they showed us how much smarter they were than us? How they knew so much more about machine learning than us? The whole situation was just so bizarre.

In retrospect, I think they chose our table specifically because we were two women alone. They were hyper focused on talking at us, not with us. The obvious motive would be they wanted to have sex with one or both of us, but that didn’t really make sense. Why sit down with us as a group of six? If it had been a smaller group, two or even three guys, it would be more comfortable. There is no way that we were going to go home with one of them when there are that many approaching us as a group.

They seemed to be trying pretty directly to impress us with the illusion of money and intellect. It was interesting to witness such behavior from these men. Brittany and I were both smarter, younger, more attractive, and although I can’t prove it directly, it was very very likely made more money than any one of them. We wanted and needed nothing from them, aside from maybe a perverse sense of light entertainment, a glimpse into the desperate pleas for help and companionship masked as bravado. They had literally nothing of value to offer us.

But when their mask of confidence fell revealing just how fragile their masculinity is, they needed to turn the interaction into a pissing contest about who knew more. Why? To get to know us, or at least Brittany? To have a pleasant conversation? No. To dominate. And again, why? Why was this so important to them? I’ll never know the true intentions of this strange, sad group of men.

In the end, I feel like they did “win” this interaction because Brittany and I both ended up engaging with them. But then I think about my life. I am not always completely content with who I am, but I am working towards that. And I understand that the feeling of being whole comes from only myself, that I don’t need to tear others down in order to lift myself up. That I can strive to always judge others by their actions, not their appearance. That I am uniquely beautiful, sexy, smart and self-sufficient, and none of those qualities is incompatible with another. That I am fun and have amazing, inspiring people in my life to share these experiences with. And isn’t that the real prize?

Special thanks to Doctor Brittany Suttner for contributing to this post and helping me piece together what the hell happened that night.