We’ve made small talk before and have seemed to enjoy each other’s company. I never thought about our exchanges before because she was very beautiful and I gain the majority of my confidence from the idea that I lack any real chance of hitting it off with attractive women with sparkling personalities. I’ve always reasoned that anxiety is for people who have a chance, so if I isolate that possibility and figure it’s all for nought, then I give myself the freedome to act however I damn well please. See how that works? Usually like a charm, until someone actually takes an interest in me because then I have no idea what to think about anything and my entire mental base for operations goes out the window.
Or maybe it’s not confidence, maybe that’s shamelessness. No matter, it works just as well.
So she’s back making small talk and something instigates her to say “I’m waiting for you to ask me out.” I think it was me asking why she was standing around.
Did I mention she was into the comedy scene? Apparently I was one of the only people at work that knew this about her. Funny girl. I laugh. I told her once I’d like to see her routine and she seemed taken aback and swallowed very hard. I backed off the subject.
She wanders off and comes back a little later. I start talking about the fourth of July and I ask if she plans on blowing anything special away to celebrate out great country. She leans in, and then says “you” and then walks away with a smile. The looks on the customer behind her was priceless. Hysterical!
Pens are great to play with. I have one behind each ear and about three in front of me, and holy crap is today slow. They’ve already kicked some guy out from one department for masturbating in in the store, and some bald drunk guy in a Hawaiin keeps hitting on the key cashier. The girl comes back, but this time she walks past me and right to the key cashier, now drunkard free. She whispers something to her and then hands her something. She looks at me and smiles, then walks out. It was a phone number with her name on it, and apparently she was too “embarassed” to hand it to me. Hah.
Fourty minutes later and I’m still trying to make sense of the digits in my pocket…didn’t she have a boyfriend? We talked about that some months ago. Some customer was hitting on her and she was trying to turn him down politely. I suggested she say that her boyfriend was the jealous and dominant type that can’t stand to even think about her talking to strangers…and then that she comes in with makeup as to make it look like she has a black eye. Did we just make the boyfriend up together, was he real, or is he know out of the picture?
Me and the Key are starring straight ahead with straight faces now. Roughly eight minutes ago I royally pissed off a customer by asking her if a book she was trying to buy about pregnancy was for her, or a friend. She needed it delivered in two days. If it was because it was for a friend, we could have it shipped to her house, if not, we could’t help her. She flipped out and make various accusations about me being rude, a horrible employee, an asker of inappropriate questions, and a bigot before running outside to grab her husband. The future “Best Parents Ever” were now screaming at my store manager after going through me and the Key like wet paper towels. What the hell is with today?
Did I mention I’m poverty stricken? I’m sorry, was poverty stricken. Said girl decided to give me her number at a time when I had no minutes on my phone, little to no food at home, an amount of gas in the tank that I was lucky could even get me home, and I had written a check for $480 to my apartment complex when I only had $390 in the bank.
I can’t get what happened out of my mind. I turn to the Key who’s still starring dead ahead as to avoid any kind of attention from the tower of raging hormones near the entrance. I ask her “Hey…was she flirting with me, or does she just want to hang out?”. She thinks she just wanted to hang out.
I decide I can’t ask to borrow money without cell phone minutes, so I buy those, borrow money from some family, and then make the call. We enjoy some small talk about nothing particularly amusing in a irrelevant fashion, nor anything particularly deep. Food, music, movies, whatever. I dismiss myself from the conversation early because the minutes I have have to last me a while. I tell her I’m going to go outside and watch fireworks, and she thanks me for calling.
I invite her to a BBQ later. She says she can’t go because she has to work. That sucks. We make more small talk.
I don’t believe I’ve ever told anyone here how much I suck at phone conversations. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me trying to take the blame for her inability to maintain a conversation. I really can’t think on the phone, she was carrying us. For me it’s like pulling teeth. I find having a piece of plastic held against my ear until it’s covered in my sweat and my ear hurts is wildly uncomfortable.
Did I mention I also sell phones? Not a bad job really.
I know from the get go I have to get her away from the phones and into someplace where we can talk in person for us to really touch base. I’m a decent conversationalist in real life, and a wonderful conversationalist on aim. I just don’t operate on phones.
We walk out of the store after closing a little while back and she’s talking about how she did something new with her hair.
“You did?”
“I did”
“I thought it always looked like that”
“…No”
“Oh…huh”
This was my attempt at trying to make small talk.
I should probably tell you now that I’ve never complimented a woman in my life, unless you count mother’s and sisters. And I don’t. I have no idea how to flirt, and I’ve recently discovered that I have a mental block about it. I’m not fond of complimenting people in general unless I really feel like they deserve it. I know talent and sincere effort when I see it. As for beauty…well that’s always been different for me. Take Said Girl for example. I’m sure she gets told on a daily bases how beautiful she is. I mean, I’d consider it a known thing for her. For me to tell her so and act like I mean it would be like a child trying to feign surprise and joy at opening a Christmas gift when he knew damn well before hand what he was getting. Oh, receiving that X-Box360 is a great thing, no doubt, but do you really want to risk looking insincere by trying to looked shocked when you’ve known for the past week you’ve been getting it and know the specs by heart?
I’m a big fan of strong silences and shared looks. Saying something without sounding honest can turn things into an even bigger debacle than silence. This is pretty stupid, I know, but in a long term relationship I would be romantic. and there is something to be said for the safety of keeping your mouth shut.
(First person to start a projector with a film reel about the deaths caused by people refusing to stand up to the Nazis and WW2 by choosing to stay “silent” get a free pin. It’s real metal!)
For those of you keeping score at home, here are my current blunders as I see them.
[ul]
[li]Well thank you! I am a good looking guy! …[/li][li]Can’t talk now, stuff is blowing up outside![/li][li]What, you mean you did something different with yourself? I’d never been able to tell…[/li][li]Come out with me!..And all of my friends. [/li][li]She’s asking me out, but I’m skeptical. I mean, if she has a boyfriend it’s not like I can just call it quits. Why then I’d have to stay with her forever! Better not giver her the benefit of the doubt and play it safe.[/li][/ul]
I’m not going to try and make this sound like anything more than what it is: A girl asking me out. However, I do feel like we have a lot in common, she is very beautiful, interesting, and this is the first instance of experience anykind of mutual attraction in my life, and by God, I’d like to give it a chance before I eradicate it with my own awkwardness and incompetence…assuming it’s not too late because I really think I have a track record with this girl working against me now. I’m asking her out again tomorrow, and leaving her alone after that. I don’t know where to, I just know that I need to make my interests clear. Yeah, I’m asking you out, I’m attracted to you, I want to have fun with you and no one else, and I think you have a wonderful personality.
And that I need advice. I’m flying blind here people. Does this look like a done deal? How far am I going to have to go to recover the situation?
