Grrrrr…at 29 years of age, I really should be able to deal with talking to someone of the opposite sex without getting entirely tongue tied, shouldn’t I?
Bleah.
Okies.
So after I get done watching the movie tonight, as I’m leaving the theater I notice that downtown seems really busy for 9pm at night, even on a Saturday night. I decided to wander down and see what’s going on, and realize that there’s a parade going down the streets of downtown! I was still pretty clueless as to just what was going on, so I asked a security guard who was standing around, and it turns out that it was the opening parade for Seafair, a local summer celebration.
I hang around for a couple minutes to do some people watching, when a girl walking by catches my eye. Probably about 5’8″ or so, brown wavy hair in a ponytail, wearing a very nice black velvet ‘goth’-style dress. She was looking around for a way to get across the street — not likely at that point, as the parade still had a way to go, according to the security guards. We got started talking as she tried to figure out how to get to the bus she was hoping to catch, and ended up chatting for a block or two as I started to head home and she found her way to another bus. Cool cool — nice to actually strike up a conversation with an attractive girl that I see for once!
I get home, shave and change, and head up to meet Rick for drinks up at the Barca Lounge, right next door to the Vogue. As a surprise, he’d gotten ahold of Candice and Chad, and the four of us hung out there for a while, then headed down to the IHOP that’s just a few blocks away for munchies. We get there, sit down, and are sitting there talking, when who should walk in and sit directly across the aisle from us but the girl I’d been talking to earlier!
I saw her sit down, and when the converation lulled at our table for a moment, asked if she’d found her way to where she was going. She hadn’t seen me yet, so this caught her a little off guard, but then she started laughing — apparently she’d been randomly running into people all day long. A little while later after heading to the restroom, I introduced myself to her, and found out that her name is Sabine.
And…here’s where the grumbling comes in. Put me in a DJ booth and I can chat and flirt with anyone who comes by. Get me in the real world, actually trying to talk to someone that I find attractive…and I stumble all over myself. Can’t think of what to say next or how to keep a conversation going, can’t seem to string together three words without stuttering, sentences just trail off into nowhere as I lose my train of thought…argh! No matter what, I always come out of it feeling like a complete idiot.
In any case, I think I survived — Chad, Candice, and Rick all got up to head home for the night, and I hung around to talk with Sabine for another few minutes. That didn’t last too long, however, as she was meeting someone else for coffee, and he (a nice enough seeming guy named Justin) showed up not too long afterwards, so I went ahead and made my exit. On the bright side, she didn’t seem too put off by any of my stumbling, and said that she occasionally hits IHOP in the evenings…with any luck, I may run into her again — and maybe even remember how to construct an entire sentence!
(sigh)
I can hope, right?