10:27 am - Thurs 12/29/05
My Red-Hot Love Life

Thurs 12/29/05 (12:36 a.m.)

Chatting with Jane recently, she asked how things were going with the two women I�m interested in: Christy (The woman I worked with at Borders), and Teresa (The woman from the Actors Co-op).

And since she was interested in my feeble efforts to rekindle a long-dormant social life, I�m going to assume a few others of you might be interested as well...

We�ll start with Christy: Christy emailed me about a week-and-a-half ago, which was over a month after I left Borders and started working at ArcLight (If you remember, I hadn�t expected her to be at the bookstore on my last day�she�d been away on vacation the previous couple of weeks--so I wrote her a note, which I�d planned to leave in her mail box, telling her I�d enjoyed working with her, saying I�d like to see a movie or have coffee with her sometime, and giving her my email address and cell phone number. And I know this was a wussy move on my part, but when I saw she was actually on the schedule that day, I ended up giving her the note anyway).

In any case, after I realized the email from �Christine B.� was indeed Christy from the bookstore, and not just some spammer, I was very happy, as you might imagine; I didn�t know why it had taken her over a month to write, but the fact that I was still in her thoughts that long after I�d left the bookstore seemed a positive thing.

But the email was fairly brief��perfunctory� is not the right word, but it�s in the neighborhood�and I was disappointed when there was no mention of the fact that I�d basically asked her out. Just �How�s the new job?�, �People miss you here�, that sort of thing.

I wrote back, letting her know how things were going at the ArcLight and what-have-you, and commenting on some other things she�d written, but basically saying �So how about that movie/coffee thing...?�.

She responded to that overture by saying �There�s nothing out I want to see right now. But when there is, I�ll let you know� (Not addressing "the coffee option").

Now maybe it�s just me and my �glass half-empty� way of seeing things, but that didn�t leave me feeling like she was all that eager to go out with me.

And I don�t get it. If you don�t want to go out with me, fine��Women Who Don�t Want To Go Out With Me� is not exactly an exclusive club--but why bother to email me, a month after I�ve left for another job, just to put me off?

But rather than get flustered or frustrated, I emailed her back. And I didn�t say �Okay, fuck seeing a movie. How about coffee, breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, dessert, a snack, anything?" (I love movies, of course, but obviously "seeing a movie" is just a pretext in this case for seeing her. I can see movies by myself, and often do). I just tried to keep it fairly short, but be funny and engaging, and make it clear, without beating it to death, that I liked her and wanted to see her (I also gave her a little breakdown of good things that are currently playing at the theater).

So that's where we are with that.

My guess is that she's not going to be able to act oblivous about my "intentions" forever, and that's when she'll stop communicating with me.

But I'm open to being wrong.

I didn't hear back from her, and remembered vaguely, after the fact, that she'd said something about being away for the holidays.

But on Xmas day, when I was at the theater, working one of the concession areas, she got my attention from the other side of the counter (She was there to see Walk The Line, along with two guys--one of whom I recognized from ACG--who seemed to be a couple).

She kissed my cheek (I was uncomfortable having her do that, since I was hot and sweaty at the time), and said "You must think I'm a jerk for not getting back to you..." (But didn't really explain why she hadn't).

I said something about remembering, after I called her, that she'd said she'd be away for some part of the holidays (And indeed, she was leaving for a week the following day), then I brought up the reason for my call.

And she said, "I'm always up for seeing a movie" (As I said, she was there to see Walk The Line, which Christy had mentioned seeing recently in her email. All of which was a little frustrating, because I'd really liked the movie myself, and would have loved to see it again with either of them).

Once again, it didn't sound like there was much genuine enthusiasm there for going out with me ("I'm always up for seeing a movie" sounds qualitatively different, to my ears, from "I'd really like to go out with you". "I'm always up for seeing a movie" implies "I'm always up for seeing a movie...with anyone", like anyone offering to pay for a ticket would do. But at least it sounds like we could actually end up at the movies together; with Christy, I feel much more doubtful that anything's gonna happen).

So, long story short, neither interaction left me wanting to whistle a happy tune: Obviously, neither woman is attracted to me (One of the biggest frustrations of my life: Women almost always like me, but are very rarely attracted to me).

But Jane often points to the example of her and Mark (She didn't exactly feel "fireworks" when they first met. She just felt like he was a good guy, and he "grew on her" over time).

That's not really the way things "work" for me--to my way of thinking, if I meet you and my big impression is that you seem "nice", if you're basically "okay" but nothing more, if I'm not really "turned on" in your presence (And by that, I don't just mean physically, but mentally and emotionally), why would I ask you out?--and it's very hard for me to believe, if you're not attracted to me initially, that all you need is a little quality time in my presence for me to change your mind. To me, that sugggests I'm an ugly guy with a heart of gold, and I think the truth of who I am is way more complicated than that.

But it doesn't really cost me anything at this point to nudge things a bit.

Who knows? Maybe I actually will "grow on them".

But more on these stories as they develop (Or fail to develop, as the case may be).

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