Did you really just try to insult me into sleeping with you?

After work late last summer, I met a girlfriend at a hotel bar where we drank wine, ate goat cheese and talked about all the important things -- the state of her career, the state of my career, the state of her love life, the state of my liver, the deliciousness of the wine and cheese, the state of her love life, how much we love cheese in general and wine in particular, etc...  After a while, we got tired of paying the midtown prices and talking about cheese. We decided to head back to Brooklyn for a more relaxed atmosphere and cheaper drinks.  Little did we know that we would encounter a phenomenon neither of us had witnessed before. It was to be a night of discovery.

We headed to a local bar that collects quite a diverse crowd and feels comfortable. Sometimes it's a gay bar. Sometimes it's a dance bar. Sometimes it seems like a swinging key party from the 70s! It's almost always fun. This night, there was a birthday party, a mix of strange regulars and normal regulars, a few lesbians and for once, a couple of young single guys I didn't recognize.  As my friend and I sat at a table in the garden, one of the young men approached and started talking to us. He was tallish, probably 6'1", dark haired, sparkling eyes, in good shape and fairly articulate.  And by young, I mean at least 15 years my junior, possibly still cutting his wisdom teeth.  I asked if he was flirting with my friend or me and he pulled a truly horrified expression and said, "You're a lesbian." DING!

Oh how we laughed at that one! I am not a lesbian. Quite the opposite -- I love men. Always have. Always will.  So I asked Tom (name NOT changed, fuck him) why he was so sure I was gay and he alluded to my short haircut not being very feminine. DING! My friend and I had another good chuckle over the hair comment and then I informed him that I was indeed straight. He chatted a bit longer then sort of wandered off, possibly because I kept teasing him about his mistake. 

As we moved around the bar, we ran into Tom repeatedly over the course of the evening. Each time, I smiled or laughed or called out for him to let me know if there were any hot chicks I should be hitting on. He didn't really say very much. But then, as we stood on the sidewalk while my friend smoked, he came out and started chatting again. "You're very curvy. You have a big ass." DING! He wasn't talking to my friend. He got closer to me. "I know it's kind of weird and surprising and I don't know why but I think you're hot." DING! "I've never been with a woman as BIG as you." DING! "I'm a personal trainer - I could handle it. Do you even work out?" DING!  "I mean, you're like my mom's age." DING!

I found it funny that this boy was so appalled by his attraction to me. He was insulting me and obviously ashamed of his attraction but then he went for it, "You should come home with me and let me try navigating those dangerous curves." And, he was serious. "Aren't you afraid a woman as huge as I am would break your bed or crush your pelvis?" I asked. "No. It's got a steel frame and I'm strong." DING! "I'm going now. Are you coming?" I told him I still had an almost full beer on the bar but to give me his address and I'd be along shortly. He told me the address and gave me details of which door, etc.  My friend and I walked back into the bar and Tom stuck his head in for one last jab, "Could you hurry. I have a dentist appointment in the morning and I don't want to be up all night." DING!  I said I'd be right behind him and winked. Of course I had no intention of getting off my bar stool to follow this pompous little fuck home. How dare he insult me and try to get me to sleep with him at the same time! We laughed about it, ordered another beer and both went home alone. I did not stop on Union Street. I went directly home, still shaking my head over what a strange encounter it had been.

When I told someone about the encounter with Tom, how he'd dinged me at least 9 times, he said, "You've been negged!" Negged? What is that?  How did I not know of this? So I Googled it and it came right up.  Negging is a way of picking up women by undermining their confidence.  Urban Dictionary has several explanations here:  
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=negging

You are gay. You are fat. You are old. You are not worth my time. FUCK ME?!?

OMG! It all made sense. I was the target of an intentional (and failed) negging!           
The problem for Tom, and the reason he failed, was that at my advanced age, I am secure enough in who I am, how I look and the fact that I don't need some young dumb guy's attention to make myself feel like an attractive woman. 

But, I think back to my younger days, when I wasn't as confident, when I was bigger and insecure and I wonder...