On a recent Saturday night, I ventured out with two good friends to have a few drinks, dance a bit, and say goodbye to Bar Scars, the nightlife column I created and have been writing for the last five years.

In some ways it was a pretty anti-climactic ending, but that seemed kind of appropriate. I started writing Bar Scars when I was 26 and went out every Friday and Saturday night without fail, and usually a couple weeknights as well. It was a time of last calls, after-parties, and conversations that started with "I was soooo drunk" and ended with "Why did I make out with him?"--which pretty much answered themselves.

Now I'm 31, and when I go out it tends to be for quiet drinks with friends or to see a band I really love. Gone are the days I would go to the Ottobar--and we're talking Davis Street here--just to see who was playing. As are the days when I didn't leave my house until almost 11 p.m. because it was lame to get to the bar early. I remember making fun of couples that left at midnight or barely went out at all. Now, if I'm not out of the house by 9:30 or 10, I'm probably not going anywhere.

Or to put it in terms that frequent Bar Scars readers have become accustomed to, when I first thought about sitting at home watching movies and tinkering with my house it sounded boring, but when I gave it a try I realized how great it could be.

It was fitting that Rebecca and Tamara were going with me to toast this finale as they were the two people who have most frequently been referred to as "my friend" in the column. We went to Jay's on Read Street (225 W. Read St., [410] 225-0188), a piano bar that caters to mostly gay men. It wasn't very busy when we arrived, and so we had our pick of places to sit.

The inside is lovely. It has the luxurious look of an old-school country club, all wood and leather. A group of men sat at a table by the door, a few others sat at the bar or around the piano. We ordered some fancy martinis and talked. We talked about our long-term boyfriends and our jobs--since this column began I've had at least three different job titles, Tamara got her master's, and Rebecca got her Ph.D. We talked about whose family was driving who crazy and why and--this is where the story gets really embarrassing--we talked about knitting, crocheting, and kids--our friends' kids, our nieces and nephews. The bartender, who was really nice and not very busy, brought us waters after we finished our giant martinis because we didn't feel like getting wasted. Yup, it was a far cry from the days when I had sangría shots poured directly into my mouth at Cancun Cantina.

The pianist played show tunes, providing a gentle and unobtrusive backing to our discussions. After a while, a man sitting near the piano started singing along with a French song in a deep, rich voice that was unbelievably moving, even though I had no idea what he was saying. After he finished and we applauded his talents, we left. Rebecca went home because she had to work the next morning, and Tamara and I headed to the Hippo (1 W. Eager St., [410] 547-0069) to dance--we weren't about to end Bar Scars on a discussion of needle crafts.

Dancing at the Hippo is guaranteed fun. The music is cheesy dance perfection and the people-watching is amazing. People tend to think of gay bars as really image-conscious, but what strikes me the most about the Hippo is what an all-swim it is. Sure there were some hard bodies dancing on top of the platforms at the edge of the dance floor, but there were also adorably nerdy guys, drag queens, and trannies who weren't exactly passing. And dance-floor freaking was so commonplace it was almost invisible. No, if you want attention at the Hippo, you have to be part of a ménage-à-freak at the very least. A freak train is preferred.

Tamara and I got some drinks and joined the melee on the dance floor. After a while Tamara's shoe started bothering her and she stepped off the floor, but I kept going, dancing by myself until the lights went up and we all filed back out into the Mount Vernon night. We hugged and promised that even though this was the last Bar Scars, we would still go out and do weird things just for the hell of it, and it was over.

I learned some interesting things about myself over the last five years. I learned that I really like to line dance but am too embarrassed to do it unless it's somehow work-related. I learned that foam parties are actually really fun while people wrestling in sumo suits can be painfully boring. And I learned how to tell if you've accidentally happened into a swingers bar. I co-created Bitter Bingo, a game that actually got written up in a Canadian newspaper. I paid to breathe flavored oxygen, went to goth Mardis Gras, sang karaoke until 4 a.m. in a place I still couldn't tell you exactly where it is, ate pity sushi off a mostly naked woman, watched a duet between drag kings dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants and Rainbow Brite, and wrote a surprising number of ball-involved columns. I also drank a bit--OK, a lot--too much at times, quit smoking twice (the second time stuck), and turned casual acquaintances into great friends as we bonded over one bizarre outing or another. Thanks to everyone who came along--and there were a lot of you--especially Tamara Neff, Rebecca Alvania, Matt Dorsey, Dave Allen, Jess Harvell, Erin Sullivan, Frank Hamilton, Mike Janzcewski, and Wendy Ward.

Email Anna Ditkoff