Texts From Last Month

O hai. If you've just run across this blog, check out my first post, it might explain this a bit more.


Your day is not just yours. You share little bits of it with people all day long. You can't help it, but you have control over it.


I got out of my apartment the other morning and there was a girl waiting for the elevator. She looked at me as I turned around to lock my door. I made it to the elevator just in time to watch the door close.


What an effing jerk store.


If we happen to get in the elevator on my floor together...I'm pushing every damn button on the way down and I'm just gonna stand there and stare.


But...it effed up my morning. Only because I was like "Who does that?" Ugh.


The experience got me thinking about a time I had an effect on somebody. It starts with an anonymous text message I received while having a beer at a pub. It just said "I'm texting you against my better judgement, but I just wanted to say Hi."


I figured I'd most likely given my number to somebody whilst lightly toasted one night and forgot. 


Typical, happens to all of us.


But I have serious anon-o-text anxiety. I HATE texting a person and getting back the "Who is this?" response. HATE it, so I tactfully responded with the ol' "Lost my phone sorry, with whom am I speaking?" reply.


This came back: "I'm a friend of a friend and you don't know me."


Huh?


Throughout an evening of text sleuthing this is what I figured out;


Three months earlier, at the Yacht Girl wedding I attended - an event that had me not only loving life, but being completely on fire - at some point during the reception when I was annihilating the dance floor I grabbed the hand of a girl and started dancing with her. I don't remember this.


There is a pretty robust pile of photographs documenting the weekend, and I've pieced together most of it through these visual aides, but this one moment I have absolutely no recollection of.


It probably lasted only 20 seconds, because a friend of mine immediately said, "Hey! She's got a boyfriend!" and I moved on to some other shiny object.


Apparently that moment kinda stuck with this person - who happened to be a friend of the family and was only there for a quick pop-in at the reception.


She indeed was hitched at the time but was gravitating towards single-dom, and our fleeting moment of salsa inspired connection was something that she actually thought about over the next few months.


I guess became sort of an inside joke during this very emotional time for her, between her and the mutual acquaintances we shared - completely unbeknownst to me - and as that part of her life was becoming finalized, she wanted to reach out.


For me, if there is some random, wacky way I am ever going to meet somebody, it's exactly like that. A cleverly worded attention grabbing anonymous text message. That just screams me.


Obviously, I was taken aback. Flattered beyond comprehension. So naturally, being a gobbler (I gobble up everything I want. Hamburgers. Music. Girls. Nomnomnom.) I neeeeeded to meet this person. We texted the first night, facestalked each other and talked the next and met on the third at a coffee shop at one in the morning. (She is a student/waitress so daytime doesn't exist for her).


From her facebook I knew I didnt know her. At all. Zero memory of her face. Even when she walked in to the coffee shop I was still clawing at my brain for a glimpse of her from that night. Nuthin.


She sat down in front of me and didn't say anything. She just stared at me.


It was the greatest look anyone has given me in years.


A secret about me: I know that I like somebody when I can't talk good at first, or when I realize they're rad. I am generally quite the wordsmith, I rarely get nervous or embarrassed but those few people that kind of "get" me, make me actually realize that I don't have to talk all the damn time. I think it's hilair because I stumble and stutter.


This girl had me blathering. And she smelled good.


She was also easy to talk to, liked to listen to me and we seemed to hit it off.


Also, have I mentioned how she looked at me?


This was about 4 months into being single. And though I had met many wonderful people, over the next few days I actually felt what it might be like to eventually one day maybe actually care about somebody again.


Here's my weird neurotic assessment of where I am at in my singledom:


Every once in a while I picture myself walking down the sidewalk and running into my friends with a girl, I then walk myself through an imaginary introduction of said girl. Based on what happens in my brain, I know where I'm at. To me, since my friends are so important to me, what I feel like with somebody around them validates it all for me. (I know, wiiiierd.)


One of the first girls I met, the thought of running into my friends with her on my arm made me feel barfy. With this girl, I could almost fathom the possibility of being ok with it. Big step.


And she kept getting better. She danced. (If you don't know my perspective on dancing, go here now.)


Within the first week we ended up out and drunkenly dancing until the wee hours. It was pretty damn cool.


But then, the wheels came off.


She'd mentioned quite early on that she seemed to have really poor timing.


It turned out that though she was just going through a breakup with her bf...it was more of a literally in the middle of a break up...as in, still in the same house just in different rooms middle of.


I immediately time warped to being in that exact spot when I was breaking up with my ex. And I panicked.


Why?


Because I was a FREAKING MESS. Like almost unstable. And that realization sucked....because I knew what I was...


I'd turned into the shiny object.


Crap.


Even when we are at our most normal, we are still very emotional creatures...and timing our current state of neurosis with meeting somebody compatible is a bloody crap shoot, I know this.


So no matter how flattered and intoxicating the thought of meeting a beautiful girl that thought of me as this amazing dream dude was...I knew that this was never moving anywhere. She was noooowhere near a spot where any of this was actually real. It was cool, but we all know how we are during break-ups - we're just warped, needy and troubled versions of our former selves. Usually for a while.


And (thankfully) I was right, and after a few weeks of anxiety filled contemplation and interaction...it fizzled. ILooking back, I don't regret the experience, it still makes me feel awesome that I'd had that kind of effect on somebody, and sometimes when I'm at a melancholy point in my day, thinking of this story helps a ton.


Speaking of leaving impressions though, I CANNOT WAIT to run into elevator girl again, I'm gonna leave a helluva impression.