Wait, I should explain that the reasons have nothing to do with the cute bloggers pictured. (More photos are here.) It was great to see you guys last night, and to finally meet Stella, but I’m starting to think these meetups are a bad idea. Since everyone seems to be in a listy mood, here’s a list of reasons to steer clear of this sort of thing. It’s mostly for my own use in the future, but I’m posting it online in case it helps even one other person.

1. You will start the evening with a delicious non-alcoholic drink and tell everyone that you’re “not going to get wasted.” You will spend the next several hours proving yourself very, very wrong.

2. A slightly creepy hairless dude, who may or may not work at the bar, will keep touching your shoulder. (And this isn’t one of those polite, I-need-to-pass-by-you things. It’s more like “Oh, I’m so funny, I tapped you on your right shoulder so you wouldn’t see me over here to your left.”)

3. You will drink so many sexily-named $12 drinks that you use up all the cash you have with you, even though you brought way more than you wanted to spend. At this point, you will be glad you also brought a credit card, because drunkenly charging alcohol = always a wise decision.

4. You will overhear Michael say how much he likes assembling furniture, and suddenly find him irresistably attractive. But before you order that kitchen island you’ve been wanting…

5. You will develop a powerful girl crush on Melissa, and spend the rest of the night interrupting other people’s conversations to talk about how awesome she is. You will stop admiring Melissa just long enough to tell Anna that she’ll still be beautiful, no matter what color she dyes her hair. And since your co-blogger love isn’t limited by geography…

6. Kathleen, visiting from LA, will re-awaken your affection for the bloggin’ crew on the other side of the country. Tonight, you love everyone, and you want them to know.

7. Chris will show up only after you’re too drunk to operate your camera. You will ignore his helpful words that you’re confusing “zoom out” with “zoom in” and end up with a collection of photos like this.

8. You will make repeated attempts to capture photographic evidence of the newly-invented secret MBNYC handshake. You will realize while looking at your photos later that you never actually learned the handshake. If there’s a secret clubhouse somewhere, don’t plan on getting in.

9. You will crawl into bed the second you get home and completely forget that you promised to upload some files for a client after midnight, which means your cell phone will ring at six-something a.m. and you’ll have to drag yourself over to the computer. After you do the work, you’ll check this site and be stunned at the realization that other people were sober enough to blog last night. You will swear to yourself that at the next meetup, you’ll be alcohol-free, and then you will remember the first bullet in this list and start to cry.*

* I’m not saying this happened to me.