Fantasies, et al.

So I had an interesting conversation with my friend Gary last night about dating. All of a sudden it’s a thing that’s been brought to my attention. Yeah yeah, we all know I’m not all that keen on dates.

Why can’t I just bump into someone at the supermarket while looking for perfectly ripe tomatoes? Or why can’t I just run into McDreamy at Target while carrying too many things in my hands because I was probably too lazy or too stubborn to get a cart? Then we would both get down on our knees to pick up my rather useless batch of overpriced make-up and organic cleaning supplies, and bump our heads together on the way down again while we laughed hysterically at our seemingly planned clumsiness. Then he would apologize and I would say, “No, don’t be silly. It was all my fault!” And he would say, “No way! I’m the one that bumped right into you!” To which I would reply, “Okay, since you insist, it is all your fault, and you are indeed very clumsy.” He would giggle and ask me if I was being smart with him (a fact that I would deny, by the way, till our wedding night when I would confess I was just trying to be cute just to keep talking to him a bit longer).

Eventually all of my stuff would be off the floor and he would advise me to get a cart next time because that’s what most humans would do. I would ask him if he was being smart with me now, and he would giggle again and squint his eyes a little bit and look so adorable that I would actually get the courage to half-kiddingly ask him how he would make this up to me. After all, he did drop all my make up including the one eye shadow I really needed which is now out of stock, cracked, and turned into powder and of course, utterly unusable. He would say, “Utterly? That’s a ten dollar word there… uuuhhh… it’d be nice if you tell me your name since apparently now I need to make this up to you somehow.” “My friends call me Cindy” I would reply very fake-seriously, mostly because the butterflies in my stomach are eating up alive. “Huh…” he would say, “What do your, how shall we say, ‘non-friends’ call you?” I would think for a minute because, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have a ready-to-go witty response to that. “They call me Cindy too,” I’d say, admitting my defeat, while quickly changing the subject and telling him it was all fine and I was just being silly. He would smile and tell me he really likes silly, and also likes the non-chemical kitchen cleaner I was carrying.

And by now I'd be a little nervous and a little embarrassed and would probably walk away because what else would I do!

He would, of course, be wondering if he should ask me for my number or ask me out somewhere or both! He would wonder if I was married or single and did he misinterpret the signs? I would be biting my lip, walking rather slowly just in case he’d want to come after me, hoping that my jeans were flattering and that I only made a slight fool of myself.

“Hey CC!” he would say rather loudly. I would turn around, eyebrows up, pointing to myself, like who… moooiiii? “Yes you. That’s your new name – Clumsy Cindy."

I’d smile slightly trying not to show the absolute delight I felt that he was still talking to me. “How about coffee sometime? I thought you said I had to make it up to you,” he would self-righteously declare. “Fine,” I would say squinting my eyes slightly hoping that it had the same effect on him that it had on me. “That’s a cute look on your face,” he’d say. I would roll my eyes and shake my head playfully and say, “But I don’t even know your name…” To which he would reply, “My friends call me Hendric.”