Afternoon Recovery

Well, the day was spent with the guys at work making fun of me for my little encounter at the Bean, as they would sporadically come up to me and spout theories. Examples:

“He’s just really shy and got freaked out. He’s probably kicking himself right now because he knows he looked stupid.”

“I bet he’s stalking you and got freaked out because you got too close.”

“I bet he’s gay and mistook you from a distance for a really pretty man.”

(thanks guys)

As bizarre as the encounter was, I realized how strongly he reminded me of a friend I used to hang out with. Or date. I’m not sure. I have no idea since our relationship was really bizarre.

This friend is really hot but really shy. Like too hot for anyone to really believe he’s shy. We would randomly see each other at group gatherings, and I called him out of the blue one day asking if he wanted to work on a film project with me. I was moving into my new apartment the next day and we made plans to hang out that night. So he picks me up and we grab drinks. Even though we’ve hung out at mutual gatherings, I didn’t know that much about him; he’d always been really quiet, but he had an amazing smile and was always laughing at people’s jokes. That night, he was kind of shy and awkward, but very nice and very quirky. When he dropped me off, I asked him if he wanted to see my place.

Now, if any of you have met me (and most of you haven’t), you’ll know that I’m not so bright when it comes to social cues. When I say, “Do you want to see my place?” after a night of hanging out one-on-one with a lot of flirting that seems an awful lot like a date (but which I dub “hanging out” unless I’m told otherwise), I literally mean, “Would you like to take a tour of my place of inhabitance before leaving?” So he comes up and as the now infamous legend goes, I had him sit on a coach facing a great city view while I turned off the lights, lit a candle and stood behind him in the doorway without making any sort of move, because I was literally only planning to show him the view. And obviously, I crossed a few signals.

After that, he would call a lot; he was really sweet and always said and did nice things, like giving me a ride to the airport at 8am on HIS birthday. There was quite a lot of evidence saying that he liked me, some strong hints, but nothing outright. And I’m the type of girl you have to carve it out in perfect spelling on a club and then bash in the head with to get me to realize you like me.

But then he would do things that were inconsistent and confusing as hell.

For example, when he would call me, he wouldn’t really talk. It would make me kind of nervous because if I didn’t say anything, we’d have very long, heavy silences, until he’d finally laugh nervously and say, “Say something!” Soon my friends and I were trying to figure out–why would a guy call a girl just to not talk? (Like, why would a guy invite a girl to sit at his table and then not converse?) Could a man really be that shy? Or was he insane? We had never encountered this type of male creature.

And then there were other things that were just flat out bizarre.

Once, he invited me to a party at his house, but when I showed up, other than saying hi when I first got there, he ignored me for the whole night. I ended up talking to some random people just to pass some time before it was appropriate to leave, but then he got really friendly when I was trying to leave. I don’t get mad easily, but I was irritated to the point of damn-near pissed off.

Sometimes we’d be on the phone late into the night and he would tell me that he’s really, really shy, that he felt comfortable with me and had opened up a lot with me, and that I’m a really hard person to read. I figured it was obvious that I was interested in him as I had called him out of the blue with a flimsy excuse about working on a project, and wanted him to make an outright move or declaration if he wanted something, because I found him so hard to read and didn’t have the guts to be the one to lay out her cards first.

This ball of whatthefuck went on and on until I couldn’t take the tension anymore and started dating someone else, just to not have to wonder about this anymore.

I don’t know; the whole thing was weird. And in hindsight, you don’t want to date that kind of dynamic. I feel like if you have to work so hard, it’s not right anyway. But I also acknowledge that I’m not an easy girl to try to start something up with either so that doesn’t help things. Maybe there are really shy, eccentric guys out there that can be normal. This particular friend’s been in a relationship for years now, and things are great. Or maybe most of those guys are weird because they have severe intimacy issues. Or maybe they’re just Aquarians. Aquarius boys give me a perpetual ? above my head because they’re so damn eccentric and I never have any idea where they’re coming from. I actually hate them. They totally freak me out.

Regardless, it’s an intriguing distraction. Maddening, but intriguing. But in the end, I don’t want anything to do with it.

February 3rd, 2005 | Comments Off on

?

That’s what was above my head after talking to Coffee Bean Guy. I went in, he was sitting at a big table with a bunch of other people. Those people left and then he walked by me, went to the counter, didn’t really do anything, then came back and said hi, how are you, as usual. I said, “Good. How are you?” as usual. He said, “Good,” paused, then added a new line! “What’s going on?” he said, pausing, then continuing to walk away without getting an answer.

When the table between us left, I looked over and saw that not only had he changed seats so that he was now facing me, but that he was looking at me and smiling. So I just asked, “What’s your name?” “Alan,” he said. I said, “My name’s Julia. I see you over here all the time.” He asked me what I was working on, and I didn’t want to say “a free write” and let him know I was one of THOSE (screenwriters, as they are the cancers of coffee shops) so I mumbled something non-committal that ended with, “And um yeah. Random.” I think I made a move to go towards his table then stopped but he said, “Come sit over here. It’s a big table.”

So I went over and I was telling him I’m on this kick of getting up early to make the day feel longer and he was telling me how he’s used to getting up early, can’t sleep in even if he tried, whatever and then he kind of started getting weird and then just looked at his newspaper. I’m like, Oh, I guess the conversation is over. So I went back to writing. We sat in silence for a while and when he got to the sports section/basketball page, I asked him if he thought Phil Jackson was going to come back. He said, it didn’t make sense and we exchanged a few lines, but he kept his eyes on the newspaper, so I just went back to writing. Then he got up and all awkwardly said, “Well, it’s time to go.” So I told him to take care and he left. ?????? What?

I saw my co-worker, Harry, standing outside so I went over to him. He joked, “I just showed up to help you get some balls.” (he didn’t really). I’m like, I did it, but the guy was weird. He just stopped talking. I offered Harry a ride to the office (he has to park in the CB lot) and while we were standing by my car waiting for our other co-worker who also wanted a ride, CB Guy walks up (his car is parked close to me). We wave to each other as he gets into his car. I said to Harry, “That’s the guy.” Harry quite obviously tries to get a look at him and said the guy was looking at us but when he saw Harry look, he ducked his head down. Harry says: He’s a good looking guy and has a really nice car. I say: Dude. He, like, stopped talking.

Dude. What the fuck was that???

:) I’m glad I did it though.

February 3rd, 2005 | Comments Off on