Wasted (Again) in the Flatiron

The only fame the people who frequent this district can claim is that they have become, with time, even more boring than their jobs. They're usually young and, if not beautiful, can at least afford the appetizers. Not only do they want to have fun, they know how to have fun. Why? Because they've got money, and money's generally fun, especially when you spend it like a penance. What's the point of working a soul-crushing job 80 hours a week if you don't have a pocket full of the best blow on Saturday night?

However, if you're very lucky, you may meet a patron like Richard.

My boyfriend and I met Richard shortly after we hit Nativa around 9 on a Friday, when everything's still a bit Billy Joel. We were all lost together, searching for the entrance. Nativa is rather tucked away, although not in the you-have-to-know-the-owner-and-keep-track-of-your-drinks-yourself-in-pencil sort of way, but rather in that hey-I'm-in-an-abandoned-building-with-loose-wiring-and-I-can-hear-the-music-but-I-can't-see-the-door sense.

Eventually we made it inside, in the process befriending the Richard in question, a black South African investment banker who sported the same blue denim jacket and knit hat as my boyfriend and had graduated from Columbia with a master's in mathematics. During the course of conversation we learned that his older brother had been shot and killed at the age of nine. (The scar on Richard's forearm was where, he said, he'd caught one of the strays.) I offered to buy the table a round, figuring that if he didn't deserve a drink, who did? Fortunately he had the good breeding to request a Southern Comfort.

That brings us to the drinks, the one area where size really matters. Since I blacked out most of the evening, I'm not sure how much they cost, but I can testify that whatever the going rate, the price was right. It takes someone all night to get Dick Burton vision at one's usual dive bar. At Nativa, I clocked in at just under two hours and three whiskeys. The next day, tales of those drinks reached mythic proportions. "Dude, there were at least five shots in those things," and "Dude, the glasses were as big around as my thigh," and the usual, "Hey dude?did you slip me a roofie?"

As far as food, the tuna tartare's okay, although let the record show I prefer salmon. There are also DJs, and another bar downstairs, and I sensed an attempt at atmosphere (forever lost on a true drunk), although the ambience was nothing compared to a similar London scene, where the decor would be so Jetsons one'd expect one's date to walk off up the wall at any moment.

As for the help, Javier gave one of our guys a hug and a thumbs-up after he vomited in the loo, proving that Javier's everything a bathroom attendant should be?compassionate and ready to party.

Lounges?couches and open space as opposed to face-front, elbows-on-the-table masculinity?are better than straight-up bars for meeting people. However, the only important difference to you should be the following?if you meet someone at Nativa, there's a better chance they'll have an expense account. I'd spend $59 again for the chance to get cocked, listen to Prince, watch Jennifer Lopez asses wander past at eye level, meet an apartheid survivor, randomly scream, "Who let the dogs out!" and see my boyfriend look up at me 20 minutes from home on the subway, with drool slopping from the side of his mouth all the way to the floor, and slur, "Is this our stop?"

Nativa, 5 E. 19th St. (betw. 5th Ave. & B'way), 420-8636.