blueswede

the most successful lack of success

I have a little story to tell.

Saturday began with my rise from an 11-hour nap, showcasing
my uncanny ability to make up for lost sleep. I went to the
gym and had an excellent workout; I benched 165, followed by
a gradual dropoff in weight, which probably means I'm going
to be sore tomorrow, but it was worth it.

After showering and eating, I decided to take my laptop with
me to the coffeehouse on campus to try and work. As happens
so often, the work aspect failed miserably. But other good
things happened, thanks to the miracle of wireless internet.

I mentioned in my last entry a girl I'd gotten to know over
the last couple of weeks. As I'm sure you may have guessed,
I'd gotten to thinking she was pretty cool. So I decided it
would be a good idea to ask her out. No subtlety or any of
that crap, just "Would you care to go out sometime?"

The problem with this was opportunity. Our paths generally
don't cross, save for when she's at work or such. But this
situation was something I had to get resolved or it would be
bugging me for too long. I was reluctant to conduct this on
AIM (an instant messaging program for those without), but it
was boiling down to AIM or nothing, and as my friend said to
me once, AIM is the new phone.

So Saturday afternoon, in the coffeehouse with wireless, our
hero took a bold step and asked her out...over AIM.

And it was a disaster.

Ha! Got you naysaying jerks!

Everything actually went all right. Her response basically
boiled down to:
Thanks for the offer, and I'd love to be friends, but beyond
that, I'm seeing somebody. It was very flattering though.

HOLY CRAP! For once, a girl I'm asking out has chosen to be
straightforward with me. And look! Very flattering! Where
the hell has that response been hiding?

So even though I was unsuccessful overall, this was the best
unsuccessful attempt ever. She was really cool about it; no
getting upset, no dismissive attitude, no Book of Mormon. I
had definitely been correct in my assessment of her as being
a good person.

Furthermore, given the circumstances, I don't think it's all
that fair to me to treat it as a rejection. There are still
possibilities should circumstances change; more importantly
though, I don't have these unresolved questions pestering me
whenever I'm not keeping busy. And, as I'm sure most of us
can agree, there's nothing wrong with having another friend.

Now as I said, this was the best unsuccessful dating attempt
I've ever made. That might not be saying much, considering
the classics I've gotten, but this was very good. And trust
me, I know the bad; reactions I've gotten have run the gamut
from standing me up to getting pissed off and following that
with two years of thinly-veiled hostility. I swear I am not
making that one up.

So the quality of this response suggests one of two things:
a) I'm getting more appealing and people figure they'd best
be decent to me, or
b) I'm getting to be a whole lot better at picking 'em.

I'm inclined to say Choice B.

So in one afternoon, I've lifted a lot of weight, gotten an
unresolved matter resolved, and had a little bit of my faith
in humanity restored by one person's decency.

Pretty cool happenings, all in all.

EDIT:
There's two things I forgot to add.

First off, this was one of the easiest damn things I've ever
done. The hard part was realizing how simple it was.

Second, to rip off Jeff Foxworthy:
If you're happy when you ask a girl out and she doesn't
treat you like crap in response, you might be Dave.

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