When my car died in 2010, I planned on buying a new one. But I know nothing about cars and care even less (at least until the Tesla Model 3 comes out), so I figured I'd wait and save and research.
I have neither researched nor saved, but I've waited.
Four years later I use Uber a lot and I take the bus to and from work almost every day.
If you take the bus a lot, you know you see the same people regularly. In my case, I take the bus a lot, but I see people semi-regularly, because I have about a 30 minute variance in when I catch the bus going downtown (between 8:15 and 8:45) and about a 90 minute variance (5:15 to 6:45) coming back, so it's not every day that I see the same people.Also, I don't like talking to strangers. I've also discovered there aren't many cute girls on the bus who don't have rings and I assume that cute girls don't want to talk to anyone (including me) on the bus
Given all of that, I don't have (m)any conversations on the bus.
But there's one woman that I see occasionally that I find very attractive. She shares my stop downtown but I've never talked to her for a variety of reasons. Mainly reasons involving emotional cowardice and insecurity.
Last night, for some reason, she popped into my head and I said to myself, "Next time I see her, I will talk to her!" Even as I said that to myself, myself said to me, "Yeah, right."
Well, sure enough, this morning she was on my bus. She sat across the way from me and I fortunately had my phone as a security blanket for the minute we were facing one another. Fortunately some dude was in the way, which let me avoid awkwardly making eye contact with her the whole ride, and also gave me an easy out to not talk to her at all.
Still, my mind worked as I stared at my phone.
Would I say something to her when I got off the bus? What if she looked annoyed when I talked to her? I'd be embarrassed and then feel bad every other time I saw her on the bus.
I decided I'd talk to her. No matter what. (With, of course, the omnipresent asterisk that maybe I wouldn't.)
What would I say to her? We were going to be moving, walking towards our respective places of employment. I wouldn't want to creep her out. I wouldn't want to sound too gay. I wouldn't want to be too predictable.
I'd want to stand out but not too much. The classic conundrum that lies at the heart of the human condition.
The stop was approaching. I was running out of time. I had ideas (her hair? Her shoes? Her phone? The weather? Something about me?) but no sure things.
The bus stopped. People filed off. I decided NOT to wait for her to go in front of me--it would have been too obvious that I was being polite and it might have seemed like I was checking out her butt.
We got off the bus. And I had a flash of this conversation run through my mind:
Me: Hi there.And then this one:
Cute Bus Girl (CBG): [scowl] What?
Me: I just was saying--
CBG: *eye roll*
Me: What up girl?And then, finally, this conversation:
CBG: [Bored look] I don't know you.
Me: Damn, girl, why you got to be so--
CBG: *snap*
Me: OhmygoshhiI'mEdIhavebeensoclosetotalkingtoyousomany--So, with visions of grand failure dancing in my mind, I turned to her as she descended from the bus and engaged her thusly:
CBG: [scowl] What?
Me: -becauseIloveyourshoesandyourhairandyourchestnotthatIstareatyourboobsbutIcan'thelp--
CBG: Fuck off.
Me: I love your fingernail polish.The conversation was short. But she smiled and I got her name. I don’t think I creeped her out and I don't think that I seemed too gay (at that is accounting for my use of nail polish as an opener).
CBG: [confused] Thank you.
Me: What color is that? Periwinkle?
CBG: [smile] I don't know, it's [blah blah blah]
Next time I see her on the bus I'll have some reason to talk to her again... I'm already savoring the torture that my imagination is imposing on me in anticipation.
