It’s 1:09 a.m. in Hollywood.

“People don’t come to L.A. for the real. They come here for the fantasy,” Silver Medal Girl says.

“I know that, and most L.A. fantasies that I see or hear about in this club do start out like you read in fairy tales or see in the movies, where the guy sees the girl, first eye contact is made, but then ...,” I reply, purposely leaving my sentence open and arms outstretched with hopes that she’ll agree with the point I don’t feel necessary to state.

She doesn’t agree. She fires back as if I needed help actually finishing the sentence, in which she was more than obliged to reiterate.

“Then guy and girl DON’T live happily ever after? This is L.A. These people met in a club; these people don’t come here to live happily ever after. They come here to meet, look good, look at each other look good and to have sex soon after. It’s a fantasy. It’s a game. YOU know that, Mr. Sporty References.”

After she stated all of the above, which I already did know, something happened. Both our moods seemed to soften a bit, and we both did something neither of us had done the whole time we had begun this conversation: We smiled, not sarcastically, but in an acknowledged we-both-need-to-loosen-up sort of way.

I should know the feeling; I feel it almost every night in this club around this hour. The Bitching Hour, when most of the patrons are full of alcohol, drugs, testosterone and/or themselves.

The Bitching Hour is also when the people who wanted only to be seen when they arrived now want to be heard AND want to get laid as well.

This is definitely NOT my favorite time of the night. Definitely not my fantasy…