I'm Baffled

I haven’t been around here a lot recently, mainly because I’ve had a lot going on in my personal life. The big story is actually one that I’m not going to get into here – had a short lived relationship with a guy that ended in a spectacularly bad way – but I will get into another story that just happened and has left me completely baffled. I need advice/opinions from men here because I am currently in a state of WTF and it’s annoying me. Suffice it to say, my luck with the opposite sex has been HIDEOUS lately.

So the story: There’s this bartender (yes, another bartender) that I’ve been flirting with for months. I gave him my number a while ago, he never called, said he lost it and asked for it again. Being a self-respecting female I told him no, because you never give a guy your number more than once (that’s a rule ladies). Still, he was persistent, giving me his number (I didn’t call) and continually asking for mine. Eventually I gave in, he got the number again (there goes the self-respect, but in my defense I was drunk when I gave it), and we agreed to go out.

Our date ended up being a full day event of skiing (I’d never skied before). It was…great. We literally spent from 6:30 in the morning until 11 at night together, and there were no awkward moments in the conversation. We laughed a lot, talked a lot, drank a lot (after the skiing ended – we’re responsible adults, I promise!), and made out a lot. The day ended with him throwing me up against the wall at a bar we’d ended up at and full-on making out with me like a stud. I’m telling you, it was surprisingly hot. After regaining my equilibrium I left, and an hour later I got a text saying he’d just gotten home, and good night – talk soon.

Fast forward 2 weeks, and no word from him. I’m confused, because while I realize I’m being blown off, I don’t know how it happened. Or rather, I don’t know why it happened. This was not a mediocre date; it was an amazing date. So I end up at the bar where he works with a friend last night (we go there a lot), and the dude completely avoids me. I mean, we sat down at the bar and it took him 20 minutes of working right in front of us to say hi (we did get our drinks right away from the other bartender, otherwise I would have been beyond pissed). Then he avoided us and eye contact for the rest of the night. Ummm…what?

Is he still in high school or something? What the fuck is going on here? What am I missing? I mean, I realize what it all means, I just don’t get it. A) The behavior is completely unacceptable and is making things awkward when it doesn’t have to be (which sucks because he works at one of my favorite bars), and B) it totally doesn’t make sense. It’s not like I was pressuring this guy for a relationship – we’d been on one date, and not to put too fine a point on it but he wasn’t exactly boyfriend material. So why the sudden turn-around and weird behavior?

Can I call him out on all of this? Of course not – I know that – it would just make him think I’m a psycho. So men out there, please explain this to me. Ask follow-up questions if you need more info. And is there anything I can do/say to the emotionally stunted moron to make things less awkward in the future? I don’t want to lose this bar. For the first time in a long time I didn’t see a blow-off coming and I can’t for the life of me figure out why it happened – I am generally very good at figuring out men, but this one has stumped me. And how do I deal with him from here?

Ugh – men.