Flirting with Disaster

I went to the bank on Friday to transfer money from here to the UK. Whilst doing it the girl behind the counter started telling me how nice my accent was and whether I would like to stand next to her all day and just talk. I told her it would get pretty boring after a while but she just shook her head and with a dreamy look in her eye sighed "No”.

This isn’t the first time that a person of the opposite sex has told me how great my accent is. Obviously since I have been with Jen the encounters have been ego boosting but I would never do anything about them, but when I was single and it happened you would have thought I would take advantage of standing out from the crowd and at least flirt back with the ladies. You would think that.

Unfortunately I was the world’s worst person at picking up signals, or being able to act upon them. The best example I can give of this was when I was in San Jose exploring a secondment opportunity with PwC. I had spent 8 hours in the San Jose office and hadn’t stopped for lunch or a break, and so when I finally decided to return to my hotel I decided that I really needed to eat. I changed out of my business clothes and went out into downtown San Jose and found a Johnny Rockets. Johnny Rockets is an old fashioned American Diner type that specialises in burgers.

I went in sat down and a rather cute waitress came over to me and gave me the menu. I was very very very very thirsty and so without really looking at her I asked for a coke. She went away and came back with my drink. I ordered my food and as it was quiet she decided to talk to me. She asked me where I was from, what I was doing in town, how much she liked my accent, whether I was here with my wife or girlfriend. Now all this time I am answering the questions, and I am just thinking that she is being polite. But once she finds out that I am single and staying in San Jose that night alone, she asked me what I was doing that evening. Ok – looking back that is an obvious opportunity for me to say something smooth like “I have no plans, why don’t you show me around?” instead I start telling her what I am doing the next day! Other customers came in and so she went and did her job. Meanwhile it slowly sinks in the opportunity I have missed, you see her name tag tells me her name is Devon, I was born in Plymouth, Devon what a way in. I am so busy thinking of how to say this to her, that when she comes over to my table with a smile and says “is there anything else I can get you?” instead of being all flirty back, I stammer and say “just the check please”. IDIOT.

I leave the restaurant and decide to take a stroll around downtown San Jose. It was a pleasant evening not too warm. After about 20 minutes I decide to head back to my hotel. As I make my way back I see a young girl walking towards me smiling. As she gets closer it dawns on me that a) she is smiling at me, and b) she is Devon. She stops me and says Hi. She asked me what I am doing and so I mumble something about walking around, and then I realise I should ask her a question, so I ask her if she has finished work. Even as it came out of my mouth I realised what a dumb question that was – of course she has finished work she is standing on the street talking to you. She says “yeah” in a way that makes it clear that she thinks I am slow. I brush this aside and go for the kill. All my years of flirting come to the fore when I ask her “So what are you doing now?” She replies that she is going to drink some cocktails with a friend as its Happy Hour. She nods her head at me obviously expecting me to go for the next line and ask if I can join them. Instead I reply “That’ll be nice, well I am off to my hotel, enjoy your evening” and with that I head off down the road. She just stands there and even as I am walking away I am thinking, you moron, you moron, you moron. Unfortunately I must have being saying it out loud because I look back to see Devon running down the street properly thinking that she got a lucky escape that time.

2 days later Jen & I got together so Jen likes to think I was really saving myself for her.