As you should all know by now, I'm very socially awkward, so it's always astonishing to me when I meet someone that's even more incapable of social interaction than I am. I'm not sure if it's me that feels an unconscious need to befriend these kindred spirits, or if it's them who recognize their own failings in me, but I inevitably end up being drawn into their social circle, often times against my own will.
I used to work with a guy called Rick who really liked to get my opinion on women. It never seemed to matter who the woman was, or what she looked like, but he seemed to think that every woman was fair game and wanted to know if I would be going after her sooner or later.
Our co-worker Colleen was moving away to go to university, and it was unlikely that either Rick or I would ever see her again, barring random anecdotes over facebook. Colleen and I were never really close friends, we didn't speak very much, and we really just had nothing to say to one another since our interests were so vastly different, so I wasn't all that sad to see her go. Don't get me wrong, she was a really nice girl, very smart, very capable, but I just never connected with her, so having her removed from my life wasn't going to change much about my everyday patterns.
About a week before Colleen was ready to move, Rick came up to me and started asking what my opinion was of her. The three of us had worked together for about two years at this point, so I just gave the usual "seems nice, good worker," answer and prepared to go on my way.
But Rick wasn't done yet.
What he actually wanted to know was if I planned on having sex with Colleen. "Don't you think she's pretty?" he asked, and, admittedly, Colleen was a very pretty girl, nice smile, bright eyes, but I had nothing to say to her. I agreed that she was very pretty, and he just sort of nodded, waiting for me to continue, but there was really nothing else for me to say. He tried to coax me on with "and? AND?" And nothing, Rick.
I had never known Rick to be a very tactful person, so I was surprised that he tried to beat around the bush rather than just asking it outright, but he continued on with "well? Are you gonna...you know?" and then he made a penetrating motion with his hands.
I assume I looked mildly hill-folkesque with my slack jaw and dumbfounded expression. I paused for a moment, wondering if I had actually just seen what I had just seen, considering all of my possible responses, and instead replied with something along the lines of "...dwah?" He then asked again if I planned to "...you know..." and I said "well...she's moving in about a week..."
This is when Rick threw his hands in the air in exasperation, as though I were the biggest moron in this conversation. "I KNOW!" he screamed, "that's what makes it perfect!"
I sort of shook my head, wondering if the two of us had the same idea of perfect, but said "I think that would be a disappointing send-off for Colleen." I figured that the easiest way to end this line of conversation would be through humour, so when he said "disappointing? It would be quite the opposite!" I replied with "NOT THE WAY I DO IT!" We both laughed, and while I turned away to continue my work, he decided to follow me and continue badgering me about why I had no plans to sleep with Colleen.
"So you gonna go for it?" he asked again, giving me the thumbs-up. The answer was, as I had already made clear, "no," but I was getting kind of tired of repeating myself, so instead I asked him why he wasn't going for her. "She wouldn't be interested in me," he told me, and I countered with "well, I don't think she'd be interested in me, either."
Rick looked me up and down, considering me for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, I think she'd be down with you," he paused, I assume for comedic effect, "or GO DOWN ON YOU! HI-YOOOO!" He raised his hand for a high-five, but I did not respond in kind.
Through this conversation I had managed to find out that, not only did Rick find me attractive as a man, or, at least, more attractive than he, but he also was living vicariously through my conquests, which were, and still are, few and far between. I suppose it's also possible that he didn't find me attractive in the slightest, but just thought that Colleen's standards were very, very low.
Over the course of the rest of the week, every time Colleen and I would have any contact, usually due to helping one another with a customer, Rick would give me an inquisitive look as if to ask if I had slept with her yet. More than a few times, sometimes twice in the same day, Rick would come up to me as soon as Colleen had walked off and ask "...so?" to which I would reply "...so what?" and he would follow that up with "come on, man! This is your last chance!"
Colleen moved away and I never did take Rick's advice. I don't really do one-night stands, and I'm not sure I would be all that interested in a woman that did.
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