CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Getting Becky's Phone Number

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

this entry brought to you by radiohead, "there, there"


When I was working at Sears around 8 years ago, there was this girl named Becky who worked in the electronics department. She was tall and willowy, bookish, long blonde hair. She was hardly my type at all, but she was very pretty and a fun chitchat when I ran into her. I worked in a different department but I saw her several times a day, and every time she passed by me, smiled her shy smile, and her quiet voice saying hello and, usually, asking for my help, my coworkers all grinned at me. I should ask her for her phone number, they'd say. "I think she really likes you," would come occasionally. I didn't really pay attention. For one, I didn't really believe them, and for another, she wasn't at all my type.

A year passed of this, and over this period of time my job, which was horrible and soul crushing, would weigh down on me. But I never wanted to get a new job, so instead I stayed, my mood swinging violently between "hate myself" and "hate everyone and everything". I'll admit, though we had nothing in common, she was a bright spot in my otherwise execrable days. She always had a bright, shiny, yet shy smile for me, her long, flowing gold hair brightening her presence. She looked like a dandelion.

Self-loathing makes me do strange things, things that aren't in my character. Self-hatred thinks, what the hell, what've I got to lose? Self-esteem, which, in ordinary people on the other hand, gets credit in people doing daring things, for me is the opposite. Self-esteem is safe, because it thinks, oh look, you're comfortable with yourself for once. Don't do it because you know how miserable you'll be when you fail. You have everything to lose. I mention this because it's not really in my character for asking for phone numbers with a girl that I don't already consider friends, especially those that I don't feel like I have anything in common with. But I thought, she's nice. She's pretty. And yes, she listens to Shania Twain, but she might be fun to go have coffee with or something. And so, in a deep murk of self-loathing and without a care for rejection, I walked right up to her one day and said, "You know what? I want your phone number. Do you want to give me your number?

She looked at me shocked, but grinning, and gave me her phone number. I called her a few nights later, and about 15 minutes into the conversation she said that she was "Kinda seeing someone", which was perfectly fine and dandy. Talking to her on the phone revealed that she wasn't one of those quiet, bookish types that were secretly awesome. She was in fact everything you expected her to be: boring, yet sweet. Conversation with her was acceptable. In fact, we talked for about an hour, which surprised me-- I'd expected 15 minutes tops. She was thoughtful and gave reasonably good conversation, but I was definitely the one carrying it. At the end we'd agreed to go out for coffee sometime.

A few days passed and I was talking to Liz, one of her best friends, who filled out a bit of a back story that I didn't know. Turns out that Becky had indeed had a crush on me for the entire year, and had been patiently waiting for me to ask for her phone number, which is why all my coworkers kept insisting I ask her for it. Her coworkers in her department apparently used to have a pot going for when I would ask her out. But I waited so long that she lost her patience, and when, a month prior, some other guy asked her out, she said yes, and now that guy she was "kinda seeing" and her were engaged to be married. That's right. Engaged, after only a month of knowing one another. The wedding date was set for three months later.

And you know, when I heard she was "kinda seeing someone", I wasn't heart broken. She was cute and pleasant and I'd not intended on doing more than maybe drinking coffee with her. Learning she was also the kind of girl who could get engaged with a guy after only a month of knowing her reminded me why I'm not the kind of guy who asks for a girl's number when I barely know her.
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 on this day last year an entry about bullies i thought was a lot more clever before i wrote it than when i had. don't worry about clicking it.
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with love from CRS @ 11:40 PM 

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