Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Virgin is a smooth operator

#19 Never Have I Ever: Asked a guy out on a date

Foreplay: If you haven't gotten the memo already, I'm a coward. A chicken, a scaredy cat, a dastardly recreant -- you name it and I'll meekly nod and peep, "Can I have more, sir?"

I'm so terrified of rejection and criticism that I'd rather not try at all. I tremble just thinking about being in the spotlight or in front of an audience. I have such severe secondhand embarrassment that I've walked out of the room while watching Friends on multiple occasions.

The Down and Dirty: I fretted all day just thinking about texting Blackjacket. Eventually I consulted a tribal council of 3 male coworkers on the perfect message. But first, they had to reassure me that yes, he was interested; and yes, I should make a move; and yes, you might as well call me Jacque Lacan by the way was over analyzing the situation.

So before leaving the office to go grocery shopping, I sent one sentence referencing our prior Oscar conversation. Less than 10 minutes later he sent a cheerful reply and question.

Now, I probably shouldn't have even been reading my texts while driving in the first place so I thought it better to reply when I parked. But with it being Hollywood and all, I didn't get to the grocery store that was 2 miles down the street until 20 minutes later. I sent a riposte. Nothing. Oh no... self doubt started to set in.

It'd been 45 minutes since my last text and I decided it was now or never. I sent a message asking him to a show at the Upright Citizens Brigade. And waited. FOR 14 HOURS. Do you know what kind of aneurysm that gives a girl?!

I kept checking my phone for some sort of response -- whether it was high-five inducing or a flat out rejection. One hour passed. Then two. Four... It was now almost 1:00am and I highly doubted I'd get anything. Sigh.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't totally bummed out. Perhaps this was just karma coming to bite me in the ass for all the times I've ignored text messages from blitzed encounters from the night before and labeled them in my phone as "So-and-so - IGNORE" or "What'shisface - DO NOT ANSWER".

The next day I went about my morning before work as usual, determined to push this ego-wrecking experience behind me, when suddenly -- beep-beep -- a text! Apparently his phone had died the night before while out but yes, he'd love to catch a show! My deflated ego had huffed and puffed and grew to Grinch-heart proportions; I asked if he'd like to grab dinner beforehand. Of course! He'd call me later tonight.

Um. Come again? ...Call...?! What ever happened to the comfortable safety net of text messaging we had going on?! What about that?!

But you know... maybe it's because he's from an older generation or because he's a gentleman, but I was actually alarmingly charmed that he'd rather call to set up our date rather than text. Absolutely pee-a-little-in-my-pants petrified, but charmed nonetheless.

That night he called as he said he would. The conversation went as well as any awkward date arrangement could go. But uh... perhaps my memory is lacking but I guess I didn't realize how much... rustic... he sounded before.

The Afterglow: I would love to say that I'm so super confident now that I have it in mind to march into a room in crusty sweatpants and demand a drink from the most eligible bachelor there. But unfortunately (or fortunately considering that scenario), my self-esteem is still humbly low for the most part.

While settling on a restaurant, I felt the need to blurt out that I was vegetarian this week -- for my blog. He paused and then chuckled. I continued to ramble about being vegan the week after -- also for my blog. He laughed less enthusiastically. I'm seriously praying that he thinks I'm cute and quirky rather than full-fledged bat-shit insane because dude, that's a really thin line.

I'm still a coward but now I'm a coward with a date! So hah!

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