First night out

We went out in Pittsburgh for the first time today, and while it was a lot of fun, it was somewhat of a rehash of classical social dynamics.

I volunteered to drive (as I don't drink) and I arrived promptly at the bar at 7 pm. Upon arrival, I found that only 2 other interns had made it out tonight, and that everyone else was staying home for various reasons (tired, had to take care of grandmother, etc). Then I watched as my intern friends became inebriated enough to require supervision of some kind while their less-inebriated friends went from one bar to another. The second bar was populated mostly by men and, being straight, I was not excited about this at all. The only other women there were senior family medicine residents and, even if they were interested in me, having relations with supervisors, subordinates or colleagues is generally a very bad idea. That doesn't necessarily mean that sort of thing never takes place.

The interns I was with and one of the seniors, who was also, to put it his way, "done" , wanted to go to a hookah bar. Since I wasn't someone who smokes either, I was not excited about this either but felt somewhat obligated to join them and "look after them" as such since they were my team but they were quite inebriated. I chilled out at the hookah place while they smoked and, around the time I ducked outside to get some fresh air, one of them pops out for air as well and starts walking all the way back toward the bar (about 8 blocks distance) with the other one. The senior comes out, continues to smoke, and doesn't know where the hell the other interns have gone. I get a call at some point from them, telling me they're at Jimmy John's getting some eats. In the meantime, we end up sitting across from a couple of radiologists and we start this long and drawn out discussion of medicine in the US versus medicine in Canada, and about family medicine versus radiology.

The discussion comes to an abrupt end when the senior decides hookah time is over, and it's time to find them. We find them and then we try to backtrack to find an internal medicine senior who was hanging out with the initial group of people from whom we broke off. Finding him in another club, and unwilling to go home, we formulate the soon-to-fail plan of going to the casino. The plan was doomed because we decided to first drive back to one guy's house and then drive to the casino. In the ensuing drive to that guy's house, everybody cooled off and lost the energy to go to the casino. Except me of course, I wasn't drinking so I was therefore not nearly as fatigued or dehydrated as these other guys. I went back home and showered, and here I am now, thinking restlessly about how much I will be able to get done tomorrow.

It was a nice night. It probably would have been nicer if I had met more women, but there's tons of time for that. Also, it's not like a bar or club is the absolute best place to land a career woman who's looking to settle down. We did talk to a few women there, but they were all in college and, quite honestly, seemed somewhat ditzy. I don't do ditzy anymore, it sickens me. I really do sound like an old man sometimes.