Frustrating Conversations

At the Lee Trevino Starbucks, over manly mocha frappachinos...

Me: Jason, what's up? You have this 40-yard stare like a Vietnam vet.
Jason: Something...happened in one of my art labs the other day...
Me: (concerned) What's going on? Is everything alright?
Jason: I bumped into a girl. And there was a spark. And I think she felt it, too.
Me: Like an actual spark? Or are you using figurative language?
Jason: Figurative language.
Me: Ahhh. Well, did you talk to her?
Jason: I said "sorry."
Me:...
Jason: But she kept looking at me! And every time I went to go wash my bowl, she went to wash her bowl, too! She would deliberately wait to do it. And then she'd smile at me.
Me: Sounds like she wanted you. Did you get her number?
Jason: Dude, I don't even know her name. It's the first time I've ever seen her and it's probably the last time. There were people there who knew her, but I don't talk to them.
Me: So go talk to those people and find out what her name was. Look her up on Facebook, send her a message, be all "I'm Jason and I'm arty and charming, we should get coffee." And then get coffee.
Jason: Isn't that stalkerish?
Me: Maybe. But I'm probably the wrong person to ask about what constitutes "stalkerish." I used to be a journalist.
Jason: Eh. I'm not desperate for a girlfriend.
Me: It's just coffee! It's not like you guys have to get married. If she's a total psychopath then you can always just never see her again. But if she's cool, then you guys could keep seeing each other. She could be "the One" for all you know.
Jason: She could also not be the One.
Me: True. You'd never know. But even if she's not "the One" and you decide you don't want her to bear five children by you from the first sip of coffee, she could introduce you to someone who could be the One. Or, she could introduce you to someone who introduces you to the One. But by not finding out her name, you completely break that chain of potential Ones.
Jason: Whoa. You're right. I've never thought about it like that.
Me: Besides, what other options do you have on the table? Remember "Bertha" from high school? Remember how she used to follow you around all the time...?
Jason: (face goes palid)
Me: You want me to call her up? I ran into her the other day. She works on the West Side now...
Jason: NO!

The frustrating part of this conversation is that I know Jason won't find out this girl's name. And frankly, I can't blame him, because although I am apparently a deep well of knowledge from whom all may quaff wisdom, I'm still single, precisely because I am also unwilling to take petty risks on almost sure bets. Case in point: other day I was at the doctor's office, and the receptionist noticed I was reading Dante's Inferno and said with a smile "that's a really good book."

This is El Paso. Who the hell else reads Dante's Inferno and thinks it's really good? That's like God saying, "You idiot. Ask her out." But I didn't. It's hard to be charming when you're being treated for high blood pressure -- which resulted from treating what doctors thought was a UTI but is probably just a torn ligament. "Yo baby, yo baby, yo baby! Want to help me relieve some hypertension? My urine sample's clean, NAH MEAN?!?" Besides, it's hard to turn the Inferno into a pick-up line. "Maybe you should let me take you on a tour of Hell sometime..."

...yeah. Doesn't work.

Guess it's good I'm going to law school, otherwise I'd probably die alone. I've already received word that at least one set of parents is encouraging their daughter to jump on the K-Train. "He's going to be a LAWYER. Good money..."

I...Survived Thanksgiving? What the Hell?

Thanksgiving, the national holiday that honors the autumnal harvest and feast of religious extremists illegal immigrants our Pilgrim forebears, came and passed without great incident. I was in shock and frankly a little disappointed. Nobody even tried to stab anybody this year. Oh well. Here are highlight from my life in the past 24 hours:

* A family member who will remain anonymous casually dropped the phrase "because you know how the Jews control the world" at the Thanksgiving table.

* Turned away passive-aggressive jokes with funnier passive-aggressive jokes.

* Used my grandmother's cane to sing her an overdramatic, improvised Spanish love song as though I was drunk

* Decided that many people in my life are wastes of time (not in my family, just in general)

In other news, I found out that my aunt got her condo cheap because a woman supposedly got raped there. Don't know if I believe it, but apparently, if you're willing to clean up months-old blood spatter, it really brings the price down. Huh. That almost makes spending summers at her place for Sea World camp as a child terrifying, but we're not a superstitious family, and I'm pretty jaded. My cousin moved into a house where a teenage girl committed suicide and it was pretty much no biggie. Also found out that *our* house apparently used to be a distribution center for underground pornography ring, which explains SO MUCH about who I am...

The potential for girl-drama on multiple fronts seems unusually high right now. Part of it is just my generalized narcissism, but part of it is taking/has taken/could possibly take place in reality. I don't know if I'm inadvertently sending out signals or if my pheremones carry for miles, but something is up. There's something ovulating in Denmark...

I came up with a working definition of a date that I think pretty much sums things up for me. "Dancing is just dancing. A date for me is like a sit down and talk kind of thing...where I have to pick up another person's tab and it amounts to more than $5 in non-alcohol-related activity." Obviously there are flaws -- there is the Starbucks exemption and the obvious "man-date" exemption if McDonald's is on me -- but it's a good jumping off point.

Next post: life as a "freelance journalist".