Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Single in the suburbs

Seeking a relationship, a one-night stand, free drinks, or just an excuse to dress up? The singles circuit runs the gamut.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published January 20, 2006

	[Times photos: Brian Cassella]
	Sherri Bermudez, Renee Ortiz, and Brian Mayo at Taiga on Wednesday night. [Times photos: Brian Cassella] Kristy Hammon (left) and Sarah Collins (right) share a laugh and a drink at Taiga on Wednesday night.

BRANDON - It's a Friday night. You get dressed up. You call your friends. You head to a bar like Taiga on Causeway, where there is alcohol and music, where the lights on the dance floor are red and blue and purple, where there's an honest-to-God disco ball.

What are you looking for? Love? Sex? A good time? An escape route? What happens to you when you get there? What happens after you go home?

No matter what, you'll have a story to tell.

THE RITUAL

She puts on her music and sips a Red Bull. Then she smokes a cigarette. She stands in front of her open closet. Her clothes are spread out all over everything, possibilities spilling onto the floor.

"The curling iron's going, the flat iron's going, the blow-dryer's going. I'm about to short out my house."

This is how Kristy Hammon, 21, gets ready to go out.

"You gotta plan the outfit," she says.

"Is this something that I'm going to wear my hair up with it? If I'm wearing black, do I want to wear classic red lipstick? Am I going to go for crazy colors, big hair?"

Kristy blows out a stream of smoke.

"I mean," she says, "what's my angle here?"

It's not that she's looking for men. She's had a steady boyfriend for years. It's the women she wants to impress. In the club, she feels the gaze of other women, judging her.

She wants to pass that silent test.

"Even if no one else can tell I spent three hours on my outfit," she says, ""I know."

THE PICKUP

Cesar Torres, 25, swims through the crowd like a sleepy-eyed shark. As he passes a woman, he sidles up to dance with her. Just for a moment. Then he moves on.

There has to be a vibe, he says. The vibe has to be mutual.

Off the dance floor, he sprawls in a chair, smokes a cigarette. A woman asks if he has a light.

"I don't smoke," he says, waving his lit cigarette at her.

"Stop!" she says, laughing.

Soon they're talking like old friends.

"I'm from Indianapolis," Cesar says.

"Oh my God! I'm from Ohio!"

He smiles at her, the light gleaming off the gold teeth in his mouth. She leans close, to be heard over the thumping beat coming off the dance floor.

The vibe is mutual.

THE HANG UP

Sherri Bermudez, 21, was tending bar in Brandon. That's how she met this guy. "Let's call him Rick," she says.

Rick asked her out. Sherri said okay.

Rick was a good talker. But she wasn't impressed.

"Big headed," she says. "I wouldn't want to meet him again."

And that would have been the end of it.

The next night she went out with her girlfriends. It was a wild night. At the end of it, around 2 a.m., she found herself back at the bar where she works.

A waiter slipped her a message. It was from Rick.

Thanks for calling me back, the note said.

Sherri looked up. There was Rick. He had been calling her all night.

"Thanks for calling me back," he snarled. He stormed out.

Her phone?

"It was off the whole time," Sherri says.

THE BRIBE

Guys will try to ply her with drinks. The more expensive, the better. Megan Leppla, 23, says men will max out their credit cards just to buy her a drink.

Once someone bought her and her friends an entire bottle of Grey Goose vodka.

Megan laughed at him.

"We don't drink vodka," she said.

THE BLACKOUT

When he woke up, there was a woman on his couch. Chris Creary, 22, wasn't sure how she'd gotten there.

"Oh," he thought. "It's my roommate's chick."

But the roommate disavowed the girl on the couch.

So did all of Chris' other roommates.

By this time, the girl had dressed and left. The next day, they found a note on the door.

It said, Hi, my name is -

Chris can't remember the name.

"What was her name? Amanda? Felicia? Amanda."

Anyway, the note read: I'm sorry I woke up on your couch. I'm not sure how I got there.

"One of us met her and brought her home," Chris says. "But we don't know which one."

They still have the note.

THE DANCER

At 1 a.m., the dance floor is one frothing, gyrating creature. Tarrah Nigro, 28, is in the middle of it, her long hair tucked up under a red trucker's cap.

She grabs a guy by the ear, drags him over to her, and bends over to dance with her butt in his lap. She straddles him, grinding against his crotch.

Then he picks her up, lifts her above his head. She wraps her legs around his face and they dance that way, a human totem pole, swaying and spinning above the crowd.

Tarrah is a professional. She works at a strip club called Deja Vu. But tonight, she's just here to dance.

In that, she thinks she is unique. "All the club scene is, is to go out and find someone to (have sex with)," she says.

Not Tarrah. She loves dancing, she says. It's a relief to be able to just dance.

"It's not about the attention," she says. "You get that anywhere. It's about not having to show your body and get degraded. Just having fun."

He works in the bar, but he keeps a Bible in the kitchen.

All night Luis Feliciado moves through the world of the flesh. Eating, drinking and sex: That's all the people here are interested in, says Luis, 26.

In between shifts, he ducks back into the kitchen to read his Bible. He wants to remind himself that there is a life of the spirit as well as the flesh.

"There's more than this," he says.

THE LETDOWN

Wahkuna Morris, 27, is hunched in a chair.

She lights a cigarette. She clasps her hands around her knees.

"He said, "I'm leaving. I'm taking my best friend home,"' she says. "He said, "Hang out here with all your friends.' And my friends just left."

It's the end of the evening. The bar is emptying. She's all alone.

How long has she known the man who abandoned her here?

Wahkuna blows out a stream of smoke and looks around at the other couples lingering in the bar.

"Not long enough," she says.

- S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 19, 2006, 08:52:06]