By: F.X. Galvin
There is a fine line from being a stalker creep to being a cute, hopeless, romantic. Everyone knows this outside of the exception, the real creeper who calls non-stop, will not take no for an answer, is talking marriage after two weeks, and is writing you Irish country songs with your name in the lyrics (true story, really). Well anyway, after having this conversation about a personal issue with a couple of my attractive female friends this is what I came up with. . . It is really all about your looks, which is just not fair.
I might as well give you the background story. Last Saturday night I was at a family party at a restaurant with about 25 people. Throughout the night a server/waitress (pick your poison) caught my eye. A cute girl about 5’2, beautiful black hair, slender build, with light eyes and light skin. Anyone who knows me and my taste in women knows that I have a soft spot for Irish girls with light eyes and light skin. Anyway, throughout the night, I had several engaging conversations with the server, well, as engaging as you can get with a room full of 25 nosy relatives. Our final conversations lasted about 10 minutes when we discussed several things, mostly the fact that we share the same alma mater. Anyway, I could not find the opportune time to get her number. I was not throwing it out there in front of my family. The risk of embarrassment was much too great. I would never live it down from my younger cousins and sisters if I got “Sorry, I have a boyfriend.” Also, by that time of the night I could not get her alone anywhere in the restaurant because all of the servers were conversing, finishing up their side work.
So. . . that leaves me with a dilemma, How do I get this girl’s number? Usually, I would not care and would let this girl go but something about the combination of Server Chick’s looks and personality wants me to get to know her. That led to this conversation and the topic of this article. How can I attempt to get this girl’s number without looking like a creeper. This could go wrong on so many levels. 1) She could tell me I’m a creep; 2) She could tell everyone she knows I’m a creep, which might eventually get back to me or someone I know; 3) She could have a boyfriend that tries to beat my ass or embarrasses me. (I could be wrong but I usually have a good gauge if a girl has a boyfriend but its not perfect. It is comparable to some girls having gaydar, I am pretty good at boyfriend-dar or something like that.)
Well anyway, the plan I came up with goes like this. Buy a thank you card, write her some witty, funny, cute note, and insert my number telling her to call or text me. I have to throw in text because I do not want her to think I am completely spineless and giving the option of her shooting me her number, allowing me to call her back. I weighed several options and this seemed the best. I ran it by two of my good girl friends Mandy, and the Artist Formerly Known as HR chick, now known as Peaches. Mandy and Peaches both approved and said if I was right and the girl had interest, it may be my best bet at this juncture. I made a point to say “Are you sure I don’t look like a creeper?”
That’s when Peaches gave me a great analogy. She said “no, you don’t look like John Goodman.” This went over my head and I asked her to explain. She said “look buddy, do you think if John Cusak’s character in “Say Anything” was not good looking it would not have been creepy instead of cute when he showed up at “Ione Sky’s” house in the middle of the night blasting a boombox.” Good point right. She went on further “Don’t you think if John Goodman was the John with the boombox, the cops would have been there in less than five minutes tackling his ass.” Wow, amazing you hit this one on the head.
I thought about this notion and decided that the difference between being creepy and romantic is not fair, it really comes down to looks. Essentially, since I’m not ugly so I may be able to get away with the thank you move, but if I was obese or had some type of deformity, which made me look like “Shrek,” I would be fucked. Sometimes life is not fair, which is bullshit.
The older I get the more I realize why some people do internet dating. I use to bash people who participated and have ripped on several of my friends who have done it but I get it. Some people just do not want to put up with this shit anymore. They just want to act the way they want without being characterized. Obviously, if you have read some of my previous posts I am not one of those people and rather do things the fun, awkward way. It is sick but I actually enjoy it, which I guess puts me in a minority.
I guess this also works the same way for women. As a guy, reluctantly I have to admit, I give better looking girls more leeway than ugly or mediocre girls. If I am dating a hot girl I let her get away with more, annoy me more, so on and so forth. Once a mediocre girl with a good personality gives me one too many phone calls, gets clingy, or forgets checkout time from my place on Sundays is 11am, she gets automatically 86’d from my Blackberry.
This just really is not fair on either side and I really do not fore see an answer to this problem. I wish I had a better solution but I don’t. I’ll write a follow-up article on the results of Server Chick.
To Be Continued. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .