Just My Luck

It’s a Friday night and I have the pleasure (more like torture) of shoe shopping with my teenage son. I’m sitting here minding my business, giving the occasional thumbs down to shoe after shoe, but then felt someone burning a hole into the side of my face. I turn to my left and see a guy standing there, arms behind his back, staring right at me and smiling. And so it begins..

The obvious thing to do is to return the smile and quickly turn the other direction, especially if you’re not interested. For the average person, you get the message and keep it pushing but not this dude. I look his way again and noticed he’s inched closer and still has that creepy ass grin and I then realizes that he may be a little “special”. I smiled again, said “Hi” and turned away one again.

Gone yet? Nope, he’s still there and after what seemed like ten minutes, he flashes his biggest smile yet and replies with “Hi, I’m having a great day but it would be so much better if you gave me your number.” Once he finally spoke I rules out the short bus theory and settled for strange and pushy. Bless the hearts of the men who just go for it, but he didn’t have a chance. He wasn’t attractive and this creepy ass stare down session wasn’t helping. Besides all of that, he’s still standing there with his hands behind his back like he had a surprise waiting for me.

By now, my kid has shifted his attention from a pair of LeBron ‘ s to our interaction so I simply replied “No, I’m involved with someone so we can’t exchange anything, sorry.” He thinks for a moment then starts smiling again then tells me he can just give me his and then it wouldn’t be an exchange. I guess he figured he had come up with the most creative shit ever, because he had a hopeful look on his face and started inching closer.

I just couldn’t take anymore of the shenanigans, stood up and walked away and thought about an online interaction days ago. A man messaged me FIVE times, I responded not ONCE. Clearly, we have a catch 22 situation because you can tell someone no thanks or ignore and the results seem to be the same. The good thing about dealing with someone online is the ability to block anyone who’s a pest or just doesn’t understand “not interested”. In person? You just have to deal with it. Ugh.

I just shared this with a friend who says “You have a way of attracting these types.” Don’t I already know this. Nowadays it seems like the possibility of meeting a single, like-minded, normal person where there is a mutual attraction seems like waiting for a purple unicorn.

Until there’s a cure….

Carmen Jones