Search Me (My Blog)

Sep 28, 2014

Find Inspiration, Make a Plan, and Watch it Fail

Sometimes, I revel in ironic shock at the sheer number of things that must converge for a moment to occur -the type of moment that jolts my attention, sends an electric bolt through my mind, stirs my heart, and instantly forms the resolve in my soul: I will find a way meet and get to know her.

The rest is a confluence of meticulous planning, some smoothness, and a serious dose of what could either be called arbitrary luck or the hand of God.

Sometimes, you look across a dimly lit room, lock eyes with a gorgeous woman, and feel butterflies in your stomach. That day, the room was bright, she had just ended a ridiculously long work day, and didn't look back at me. I later found out that she felt sweaty, disgusting, and exhausted. I was nowhere near her radar, though I was aware of her from the moment she stepped into the goodbye party for our mutual friend.

That was the moment I started calculating. I know I've talked about preferences before (here and here), yet it still caught me off guard when I encountered someone who immediately seemed to fit so much of my "type." Every cog in my brain was turning with the express goal of inserting myself into a conversation, finding an appropriate moment and method of introduction, making a point of connection. While the inside of my head churned furiously, I waited patiently. I joined other conversations with friends while very intently paying attention to my peripheral vision. I cannot remember the last time I multitasked so strenuously that my mouth was on autopilot while my brain was in a completely different zone.

She was having a conversation by a table with drinks, so I carefully chose an angled approach to the drink table, ostensibly getting water. Who cares that I was actually thirsty, I was on a mission. I listened hard as I poured water, spilling a little because of my careless attention to the useless task of actually getting liquid in my cup. The moment I turned to add a comment to the conversation, both her body and the conversation took a turn away from me.

Mission failed, for now.

Don't ask how many cups of water I got over the next hour. Sometimes, a move just doesn't work, but for lack of another tactic -and honestly because getting a cup of water and taking a drink is no small comfort in a social setting that I'm feeling lost in -I just kept going back for more water.

One thing I absolutely love about being a man is that when people leave a party, I have and ace in my back pocket; the perfect gentlemanly way of getting into a short conversation with a person of interest is while manscorting her.

It was a short conversation, perhaps about sixteen minutes and forty seven seconds. We walked to the main road where she wanted to get a cab, then spent several minutes failing to find one, to my inner delight. So we contended ourselves with the evolving conversation keeping us company. She had an endearing sarcastic wit to her that could only be described as sassy, and I told her as much. She told me I didn't have to wait, and when I simply stood there with a confident yet semi-puzzled look and said, "I know" to convey that I was merely enjoying the fleeting moment, she insisted by saying "you've been nothing but a gentleman." Of course, as is wont in such picturesque scenarios, that very moment was when no less than four cabs appeared -one from each direction of the intersection -and she was whisked off into the night, leaving me with an extra spring in my step as I walked home.

That was at the end of the evening, and thus the end of this part of the story.




1 comment:

  1. Cute to see what goes through a guy's head as he falls for someone :)

    ReplyDelete