By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

There comes a time in every man's life when he has to accept that he's too old to be out on the town alone. My moment came about 9:45 p.m. on a recent Friday at the rooftop bar atop Dave & Busters.

I had dropped off a couple of visiting teenagers in the game room there. A big guy at the entry said no one under 21 was supposed to be left unaccompanied in the arcade, but I abandoned my pledge to him after 10 minutes amid the casino-like cacophonous clutter.

"Have a good time," I told the kids. "I'll be upstairs sitting at the bar waiting for you when your Power Card runs out of juice."

So off we went on our separate ways. Everyone was very happy. My wife was at home alone, enjoying a well-earned bit of peace and privacy devoid of house guests. The kids were delighted to be treated like adults, free to roam the room and spend their own money. Me? I was in a little bit of heaven, savoring a couple of brews and enjoying the scenery, if you know what I mean.

For those of you who haven't been there, the rooftop bar at Dave & Buster's is a young people's place. It thrives on

hormones, male and female. If it hadn't been for a salty old sea type off a merchant marine ship, I would have been the oldest guy there.

I didn't care. I was having a great time. A Bass ale on tap. Then another.

To pass the time, I eavesdropped on the bar conversation.

Two twentysomething women next to me were having a good time. Dressed better than I had ever been in my life, they looked stunning. And they knew it.

They drank something different each round. A screwdriver. A chablis. A bubbly pink concoction.

They relished the attention various men lavished on them. One of them seemed to know a bartender like a long-lost brother. The other one attracted two old schoolmates who hovered around for more than an hour. Lots of younger men passed by just to look.

I was just enjoying the sights and sounds of a couple of young women out for a night on the town, which is what most happily married men limit themselves to in situations like that.

I tried to act inconspicuous. I tried not to stare or leer. I tried to look like just what I was — a kindly older man content to be enjoying vicariously something of the life he knew more about 30 years ago.

After a while though, I was getting bored and possibly a little tipsy. I started wondering how much money the kids were spending downstairs in the arcade.

And it was then that one of the young women, who I was sure hadn't noticed me in the best of the ways, said something that ruined the whole evening.

"Drive carefully now," she said as I got up to go.

Ouch, that hurt.

Maybe she just meant it kindly. The subtext I heard, though, was that I was an old leech who had spent a couple of hours invading her privacy, and I should haul myself back to a bar more appropriate to my own age group, possibly Pohaku's on Nimitz Highway, or perhaps a cocktail lounge in the Holiday Inn near Omaha.

I knew right then and there I wasn't going to be going out on the town anymore, at least not alone.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.