Granted, I do know a lot of people, I also don’t think this makes me “popular.” There’s a big difference between knowing people and having a favorable relationship with tons of people.
My ever-ready rebuttal for people who tell me I’m popular is always that “I’m not popular, my friends are” and for the life of me I just can’t understand why they can’t see me for the socially awkward recluse that I am.
Okay I’m exaggerating a little bit, I’m not that bad. But seriously my social skills are awful and last weekend was a prime example of this.
Last Saturday I went to a Prop 8 town hall meeting and somehow walked out of the event with a date with a lesbian.How did this happen, you ask?
Well first off, I can tell you that this type of stuff only happens to me and my socially awkward brothers and sisters.
I was hanging around after the event exchanging contact info with some of the organizers of the event and the panelists. I was standing around waiting for Danny Blakewell, the publisher of The Sentinel newspaper when this girl jumps out of no where and stops me. “Hi!” she says in THE most cheerful town that I’d ever heard at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning... she cut straight through my brain fog... (Saturdays should be for sleeping only!)
Being as though I was in networking mode, I just answered her questions, asked her a few follow-ups, and exchanged business cards with her. Little did I know (but I probably should’ve guessed) she was plotting on me.
Now at some point during our short conversation I did have the following epiphany: “Oh shit, I’m at a Prop 8 forum talking to a girl about non-business related things. She’s trying to get at me!” I was desperately trying to steer our conversation in a different direction. However this was difficult because the tone of the conversation was more like is is when you know a guy is trying to holler at you but he hasn’t really said anything blatantly flirtatious so you feel awkward about turning him down for fear that you might be misreading his signals...and may potentially embarrass yourself by saying something pretentious like “I’m not interested.” I was giving her the benefit of the doubt basically and that’s how I ended up with an e-mail two days later asking me to have coffee...
Now what? I can’t just ignore her because I’m on the Prop 8 beat at work so I’m like 45% sure I’ll see her again (which isn’t a lot but enough not to ignore her). I don’t want to be unprofessional. However, I also don’t know a nice way to say... “You do know I’m not gay don’t you?” What should I do?
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1 comment:
Tell her you would like to meet for coffee today, but your boyfriend is taking you to a play and that you will keep in contact with her to set something up for a later time.
You didn't make it clear in your first interaction that you were straight. This is your opportunity to let her know you would like to be friends but that you are strictly...you know the rest...good luck!
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