Because I didn’t have a regular opportunity to converse with many people until recently, I can often be found saying the smoothest things in conversation with people now. When the uttered comments would only make sense in the context I’d not yet revealed to the listener, much confusion would ensue.
- “She’s attractive until she wears her clothes,” I said while describing a coworker of mine, much to the shock and confusion of the person listening.
There was a woman at work who was absolutely breathtaking, but made the most unfortunate apparel choices on casual days. On most work days, the professional dress code stipulates that capri pants, unreasonably high heeled shoes and sleeveless shirts are not to be worn. Such a code leads people to wear more comfortable, yet less fashionable, attire during regular work days, giving people a choice as to what to wear, but limiting what they can choose. On casual days, such limits are loosened and people are allowed to wear their own choice of clothing.
One casual day, I was walking about the building with another coworker of mine when we walked past the breathtaking woman. The other coworker asked who she was.
“Oh she’s (whatever her name was),” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. I then thought to myself that she would have ironically looked more attractive had she adhered to the work code instead of her own choices, but simply said: “She’s attractive until she wears her clothes.”
- “Is that guy straight?”
There’s a person I know who’s last name is Straight. One day, I thought I’d seen him talking to a woman I also knew, but wasn’t certain since I’d for the most part forgotten what he looked like. What’s more, I thought as I approached the woman who’d been talking to him, I was uncertain of his first name. I was still curious about the identity of the person, however, and pretty sure his last name was what I thought it was, but simply asked the woman: “Is that guy straight?”
She laughed and laughed. “No,” she said to me, “and no.”
“I see,” I responded, getting more information about the guy than I was expecting and then worried that I’d be seen as inappropriate by the woman. “What I meant was…”
“I know what you meant,” she responded and continued laughing.
- “Now I don’t have to pet the cat at the gay bookstore anymore.”
I used to have a neighbor who’d have me over to chat every now and then. She had a boyfriend, so my visits were less than frequent and I had ample time to take strolls about the Short North in between visits to her apartment. I like cats, though never enough to get one of my own, so I would have to head off somewhere if the urge to pet a cat was ever incited in me. The only public place I could just enter and pet their cat that I knew of was a place called “The Open Book” (A bookstore that caters to homosexuals), so if the mood struck me and I was walking that direction, I’d go there to visit their cat.
One night the neighbor knocked on my door and wanted me to come to her place and see what she’d just gotten. When I got there, I found that she’d gotten a new kitten and started to play with it. As I did that, I looked around her place and noticed that there were no longer any pictures of her boyfriend hanging on the walls. I also noticed that his car wasn’t in the parking lot with the same regularity, so I started to wonder if getting a cat was a reflection of her loneliness and her having me over was to find out if I liked more about her than the cat. It struck me that she could have been trying to gauge my compatibility with her, so I told her how glad I was that she invited me over to visit her.
“Now I don’t have to pet the cat at the gay bookstore anymore.”
She didn’t have me over very often after my comment and on top of that, the bookstore moved.
- “I won’t be too excited if you call.”
Time was I used to look for dates and when I met a woman I found interesting, I’d suggest that we get to know each other better and give her my phone number. My plight, so I would be told, was that I’d try too hard when meeting these women and such behavior would scare them away from ever trying to spend time with me. Ever fearful of coming on too strong and ruining any opportunity I’d have to get to know seemingly interesting women, I’d try to watch what I said so as to maximize my chances of seeing them again. I would have liked nothing more than to tell women how much I looked forward to getting to know them and how I hoped that we’d get along well so we’d at least get to be good friends, but to do such a thing meant to risk frightening them into not wanting to get to know me. As a result, I’d have to tone down my expressions of interest.
The problem was that I had no idea what passed for the appropriate amount of interest to show in someone you’ve just met and what’s more, I had no way of knowing if overzealousness was the real reason women weren’t spending time with me. I could only go on what seemed reasonable to me, but doing that only lead to other problems. The whole idea of people being too frightened to simply meet somewhere and get to know another was itself unreasonable, as to make a well reasoned case to dismiss the company of another demands exploring their identity, so finding a reasonable course of action under those circumstances was daunting to say the least. Catering to the unreasonable nature of others to get them to simply act in a way that could benefit themselves seemed odd, as the whole idea reeked of offering more attention to those who deserved it the least, but I had little alternative. If I wanted to meet friends, it seemed to me, this was how I was going to have to do it.
I was at a store one day when I met a lovely and seemingly interesting woman running the cash register there. Would she like it, I asked her after we talked for a few minutes, if she and I were to meet somewhere to get to know one another? She responded that doing such a thing might be fun, so I started to write my number down of a piece of receipt paper. While writing I thought that I’d already be showing a lot of interest in her by suggesting that we meet to talk and then handing her my number, so I’d better tone down my interest if I didn’t want to frighten her. “Here’s my number,” I said and handed her the paper. I then quickly thought of ways to tell her that I wouldn’t become obsessed with her if she called or do nothing except sit by the phone until she did, but simply said:
“I won’t be too excited if you call.”
I never heard from her.
1 Comment
March 24, 2008 at 2:45 am
well done, guy