During my year abroad in Barcelona, I frequented a nightclub called “Nick Havana”. And I do mean frequented. A friend was a promoter for the club, and since it was located a short 10-minute walk from our apartment, we found ourselves there at least once a week. I had some good times, some so-so times, and quite a few awkward moments. One particular night, however, I experienced a moment so awkward it will no doubt go down as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

I’m not sure how, but I found myself at the bar ordering a drink. It was early still, and the club was relatively empty. Nobody was really dancing yet, just a few folks clustered around the bars and standing near the walls, chatting and looking cool. Two Spanish girls came up to the bar to my right, and miraculously, they started talking to me. I don’t remember what started the conversation, or what we talked about. I just remember feeling really excited to actually be speaking with girls, and Spanish girls at that.

So I had my drink and they had theirs and I turned slightly to face them and I said something awful like “la música está bien, no?” (the music is good). They smiled and nodded.

Let’s pause here for a moment. I’m in a really good place. I’ve got a drink, which is cool, and I’m talking to not one but TWO Spanish girls. They’re attractive and apparently somewhat interested in me. We have exchanged multiple sentences in a fledgling conversation, and they’re smiling at me. How could this go wrong?

Feeling bullish, I apparently decided it was time to take things to the next level. “La música está bien para bailer, no?” I said (the music is good for dancing). Instead of waiting for their response, and I guess in an effort to demonstrate how perfect the music was for dancing, I edged about two feet off of the bar and began to shuffle back and forth in a half-hearted dance move. I maintained eye contact with them for an eternally uncomfortable five seconds, after which time we all realized that this wasn’t happening.

To dance well with strangers, one must be either inebriated or supremely comfortable and confident. I was neither. As soon as I began to move, my throat dried up completely, my limbs felt like they were made out of pasta, and I wished that I could teleport myself far, far away. The girls observed me dispassionately from their perches on the bar, no doubt wondering what in the name of dios was wrong with this poor American.

After witnessing my spontaneous self-destruction, the Spanish girls finally, mercifully, let me be and walked to a different section of the nightclub. I don’t remember if there were words exchanged, I just remember feeling relieved that it was over, and wanting desperately to go home.

What could have caused such a complete collapse you might ask? How could I have committed social suicide without so much as a second thought? I blame my state of mind, mostly. Uncomfortable in the life I was leading, I neither made the changes I craved, nor relaxed into enjoying what was. Hovering in between, I was far from capable of wooing women in a nightclub—much less two from Spain. As a result, I was perfectly primed to experience this, the second-most embarrassing moment of my life.