Before the prevalence of MP3s and cellular phones, I used to frequent the Used Kids record store for all of my Alt-Country needs. After a particularly fruitful trip, I decided to walk to the nearby McDonald’s for lunch. On my way out of the store, which exits the customer blindly on to the High Street sidewalk, I bumped into a pretty blonde woman and dropped my CD.
We both apologized for the trouble and she quickly picked up my CD for me.
She then smiled. “Are you heading for lunch?”
“Yes,” I responded. “You?”
“Where are you going?”
“McDonalds, I guess.”
“You shouldn’t go there,” she said with a dismissive shake of her head.
“Oh?”
“No, you should really eat at the Pita Pit like I’m going to,” she said with a smile.
“But,” I said, not picking up on her hints. “You see, I have a coupon for free fries…”
She sighed and smiled. “Why don’t you join me for Pita Pit? Tell you what: I’ll buy.”
Her interest in a lunch date then dawned on me and I nodded. “I’d be glad to join you, but you shouldn’t have to pay for me.”
“Great,” she said and showed me to the Pita Pit. “I’m Allie.”
“Pat, nice to meet you.”
She and I had a fine time eating and talking together for nearly 45 minutes, at which point she grabbed a pen from her purse. Without my having to ask for it, she wrote down her number on a napkin and handed it to me.
“I have to go now,” she said, getting up from her seat, “but I hope we can do this again soon.”
“Me too,” I said, standing as she departed.
Thinking that being invited out for lunch by a woman and given her phone number meant that she was interested being called, I decided to call her a few days after we met.
The first time I called, I got her roommate.
“Allie’s not here,” she said, “can I take a message?”
“Yes, this is Pat, that guy who joined her for lunch the other day,” I said to the roommate. “I’m just calling to see if she’d like to spend an evening with me this coming weekend.”
“Oh, I’ll give her the message,” the roommate said. “Let me get your number.”
I waited a week to hear from Allie and heard nothing, so I decided to call her a second time. This time, I got her answering machine.
“This is Pat, the guy from the Pita Pit, and if you have the time, I would like it if you’d spend an evening with me this coming weekend. If you’d like that too, please get back to me. Here’s my number again…”
Again, I heard nothing from her.
After another week passed with no response from her, I decided that she wasn’t interested and that I should leave her alone. One month later, though, I was seeking another number in my address book when the napkin with her number on it fell out from between the pages.
“Why not?” I thought to myself as I dialed her number on a whim.
“Is Allie there please?” I asked as soon as someone answered the phone.
“Hold on,” the roommate said, only to return in a second or two. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“I’m Pat,” I responded. “I joined her for lunch a while back. That’s how she’ll know me.”
“Oh,” the roommate said in slight annoyance, as though I was some weirdo who wouldn’t leave Allie alone. “I don’t really know if she’s here or not, I just got home. Let me check.”
“Okay.”
“Allie!” the roommate shouted, to then start whispering to someone in the room with her. “(It’s that red-headed guy.) Allie!” the roommate shouted again and returned her attention to the phone. “She’s not here, can I take a message?”
“No thanks,” I responded in a puzzled tone and hung up the phone.
I sat in my apartment for a few minutes after the phone call and wondered what I’d done to spur such a drastic change in Allie’s demeanor. I thought and thought until the answer finally struck me, at which point I snapped my fingers in realization.
I was calling her AND saying that I’d like to spend time with her, I realized. Who’d want to date a man who’d do such things?
It was then that I decided to take a different approach to courtship.
