Smooth Operator

Maybe what this really means is that I'm a sexist, but I have only ever thought of guys being smooth. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's because girls are typically seen as the prey in the whole dating/mating hunt. Maybe it's because I just lead a sheltered life and haven't witnessed any of the infinite times girls have suavely and smoothly hit on a guy (then gone out and watched the setting of the septuple moons of the planet Philoabs IV, where those girls must live). Regardless of the reason, I almost never consider girls to be smooth. That might be an oversight on my part, though.

I went to a party not too long ago thrown by a girl on my softball team. It was a pretty good party. No themes, just hanging out, talking and drinking. That's pretty much exactly my speed. It was a little too successful of a party, in that they kept running out of beer. But otherwise it was about perfect.

At some point - let's say around 12:30 - I found myself talking to a girl there. I'm pretty sure the conversation started because my friend, Ryan, was wearing a Virginia t-shirt, and that inspired this girl to talk about how much UVA people suck. You, dear reader, might expect me to have been offended by that. After all, she was blatantly dissing my alma mater. Still, I wasn't even mildly put off by her suggestion that people who went to UVA are, in general, completely loathsome. That's because I've heard it so much that it doesn't even faze me. This may come as a surprise to you, but some people think that those affiliated with that particular University are incredibly arrogant and pretentious, not to mention unfriendly. And they might be onto something. All things considered, a lot of people there pretty much suck. But there are still a lot of good eggs that get a bad rap because of the bad apples spoiling the soup. (Yes, I can mix all those clichés together. Engineer's License.)

But I digress. Sorry. This girl's friends were saying that they were leaving to go to the bar, and we should join them. Being the suave and witty guy that I am, I said, "Well, which one is 'THE bar?'" I even put finger quotes around "THE bar." (I love finger quotes. Sometimes they inspire people to say dumb things. Sometimes they make me feel like Dr. Evil.) One of the friends said, "Why don't you just come with us?" I obviously couldn't do that. I had peeps to deal with. We needed to discuss it in committee and decide whether we wanted to go to whichever bar they were going to. I couldn't just speak for all of us. Besides, I didn't know why they were inviting us in the first place. Then two of these girls got distracted, and I was back talking to the Wahoo-hater girl about which bar. She said, "Well, how about if I just give you my number and you can call-" at which point a "friend" interrupted and asked me a question. When I came back to this conversation the girl eventually said something about how she apparently didn't hate UVA people all that much, since she was hitting on one of them.

Me: "Oh? Are you hitting on Ryan?"
Her: "No, I'm hitting on you."
Me: [Surprised and dumbfounded silence...]
Me: "Oh."

In answer to the question bouncing around your heads at this point, I have no idea why she was hitting on me. I am obviously an idiot. At that point the girls decided on a bar and announced which one. Naturally, they picked a bar I hated. Then, the quasi-Wahoo-hater pointed to one of her friends and said, "This is the cutest girl you'll ever meet. She's engaged. I just want to pinch her cheeks!"

Trying to re-establish myself as suave and witty, I said, "You want to pinch her cheeks because she's engaged? No? Ohhhh, you want to pinch her cheeks AND she's engaged. That's different. Thanks for clearing that up."

At this point the girl, apparently not dissuaded by my idiotic bumbling, conspiratorially said, "Well, our cab's here. We're going to the bar. I hope we see you there." And she kissed the tip of her index finger, then reached out her hand and lightly touched that finger to my cheek. Then she headed out to catch her cab.

I stood there, impressed, probably with my mouth hanging open, and watched her leave.

Apparently, I was wrong about girls on this planet not being smooth.