I am not one for hanging out in bars. I mean. I’m not against them or anything, it’s just that when you grow up in a family of closet alcoholics, you tend to avoid drinking. At least I did until I discovered that I was probably sane enough not to become an alcoholic myself. And for some reason people don’t seem to want to take non-drinkers out drinking with them very often. Which, really, is fine because I was born 60 and too old to be dancing all night. Instead, my early 20’s were spent driving around town at night looking for mythical local landmarks and convincing myself that we found them. If this makes me sound like a total nerd, I’ll have you know that we often stayed out past midnight.

So last night I went to this vaguely Wonderland-themed wine bar for a friend’s birthday. It was a beautiful bar (indeed, the call it a “spirit and wine parlor”) with walls covered floor to ceiling in greenery, hanging lamps made out of twisted branches and beads that reflected and refracted the low lights, and the occasional steampunky clock thrown in here and there. The sangrias were perfect and the bartenders kept the birthday girl well provided for with drinks named for innuendos. The clientele were mostly your average Gaslamp mix of women in form-hugging dresses and hipsters with epic mustaches. Except us. We were all dressed as characters from Alice in Wonderland. Because we are awesomer than your average Gaslamp mix.

Also except for these two couples in particular that seemingly had fallen directly out of an SNL-sketch and through the rabbit hole into this bar. Couple number one was made up of a woman channeling 1980’s Sarah Jessica Parker wearing an entirely cream-colored outfit, her curly hair tacked up into some sort of “French ponytail” she probably found on Pinterest. Her date was the male version of 1980’s Sarah Jessica Parker, but his hair was less curly. It was clearly a good match. The Hipster was strong with the man in the second couple. He was wearing round glasses and had an overly-large scarf on as though he were trying to convince everyone he was the librarianiest librarian around. I’m not entirely certain his date was his girlfriend because we felt pretty sure he didn’t swing that way. In any case, she was entirely unremarkable. I spent a long time trying to mentally remark upon her, so that I could remember to write this down today, but I could not do it. There was zero remarking to be had with her.

At some point in the night normally well-past my curfew (I think it might have been 9pm) a DJ started playing and all the cool kids (except for us who were actually way cooler) went and smooshed themselves together on the small dance floor. I know there was massive group smooshing happening because at one point I decided to go to the bathroom and for some reason the way to the bathroom was through the smoosh floor. I mean dance floor. (Strangely, the way back from the bathroom was much simpler and less smooshy.) (I feel like I should say “smoosh” a few more times to get it out of my system. Smoosh smooshy smooshed smooshers. It’s so fun! You try it! Smoosh!) These two couples were having none of the smooshing. They decided to create their own dance floor. Right next to our table in the corner near the bar. And that was kinda weird. And it was kinda weird that they kept, like, bumping into us when no one else in that area was doing much of the bumping into. But the really strange thing was the style of dance itself. I feel like it’s totally okay for me to make fun of them because 1908’s Sarah Jessica Parker clearly stole my dance moves. The ones I made up in high school when I was really into 10,000 Maniacs and thought that if I just threw my arms out a little wider and more randomly I’d actually literally turn into Natalie Merchant. 1980’s SJP, in her entirely cream-colored ensemble was throwing her arms back and up and out and I really don’t know a lot about how the cool kids dance (today or, like, ever), but I am fairly certain it’s not like that. Male SJP seemed to really dig it, though. He was way into her smooth moves.

Possibly Gay Librarian and Unremarkable Lady Date, however, stole the actual show. I am fairly certain that with a large enough grant it can be scientifically proven that they fell out of that one party scene in Douglas Adam’s Life, the Universe, and Everything, and they’d have been showing off their trophy for the most gratuitous use of the word “Belgium” if they could have been heard above the music. Instead they had to communicate their Special Uniqueness to the world through dance. It went like this: grind, swing dance, grind, grind, completely stop dancing for 45 seconds to perform an obviously-trademarked move where Unremarkable overdramatically ran her fingers through Librarian’s Bieber-esque hairstyle, resume grinding. In the words of the wise Dave Barry, I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

At some point Librarian left the other three alone at which point 1980’s SJP and Unremarkable hooked up and did some combination of the two dances while Male SJP looked on helplessly and while we took bets on how soon until the girls started making out. But we could not have been more wrong. When it came time to split up the foursome for whatever reason (probably something Extremely Unique you’d never understand) the two men gave each other a hug. And not just a, cool-see-you-later-dude-hug, but an I’m-so-sorry-to-hear-your-dad-died-you-can-lean-on-me-hug. And then a kiss. On the lips. And the thing is that two guys kissing is not weird. But pecking anyone goodbye who isn’t your actual mate on the lips is just as weird as they way they danced.

I will never understand hipsters.

But I will always find them endlessly amusing.

Smoosh.