Fifteen

I volunteer with Meals on Wheels, and through them I help an elderly go grocery shopping and run errands every week.  I was running late to meet her today, so I had my headphones in and was speed walking to the music to make up time.  Along comes a handsome guy with reddish-brown hair and a nicely groomed beard.  I thought to myself, Man if I had the time I would stop and talk to this guy, but instead I settled for smiling at him and getting a nice smile back.  Two hours later my lady and I stopped at a coffee shop, and that same guy was sitting at a table in the corner. 

I decided it would be bad form to ditch my lady for this guy, so instead while I waited for our coffee I wrote a note on a napkin:

Random note for you: I passed you this morning but didn’t have time to stop and say hi.  Now I’m with my friend, so I can’t talk.  If you would like to meet sometime, call me!  -Penelope 415-555-7949

Then I walked over to his table and handing him the napkin I said, “Hi, I'm just dropping off this note for you.” He smiled and said thanks, which made me wonder what my reaction would be if a random person just walked over and handed me a note.  I’m sure I wouldn’t be cool about it and would ask ten questions before just reading it.

A few hours later I got a text from him…Hi Penelope.  It’s Fifteen from the coffee shop.  I wanted you to have my number so when I call you it won’t be a random number calling.  Have a good day.  Yes! Clearly the key is to exchange less than ten words in order to make something happen.

Fourteen

A couple of months ago I was introduced to a friend’s friend who was the DJ at her event.  By introduced, I mean that my friend asked me if I had met Fourteen, and I said no but that I would act like I was his biggest fan.  Please remember that I have no shame.  Walking up to the DJ booth I jumped and squealed like a teenage girl, “SHUT UP! It’s DJ Fourteen!  Oh my goodness I can’t believe you’re here!”  Then I accidentally kicked over the sign for the event (luckily it was just a giant posterboard propped up against his booth). DJ Fourteen, my friend, and I laughed at the scene.  I propped the sign back up and proceeded to the booth where I properly introduced myself.  We talked about music, our signature dance moves, and nonsensical things in general.  I had a new possible crush but was lame and left without doing anything about it.

In my new world of online looking (it doesn’t count as online dating for me yet), I stumbled upon DJ Fourteen.  Figuring this was a safe bet, I sent him a message, DJ Fourteen!  Hi!  We met a while back at Ann’s event.  I’m the girl who gracefully kicked over the event sign.  Since we’ve already met without too much disaster, I think we should meet again.  I will do my very best not to cause too many catastrophes.

 – Penelope

Ok Cupid allows you to see who has looked at your profile, which I always want to know, and two days after sending that message, Fourteen checked out my profile. However, he hasn’t replied yet.  So much for a sure thing.

Thirteen

Over the weekend I went to a holiday party where I knew two people – a good friend and his girlfriend, who was one of the party hosts.  I do just fine in this kind of setting since I like to meet new people, so I was mingling away until it was time for the white elephant gift exchange.  We crammed everyone into the biggest room, so we were all nice and cozy.  A few minutes into the game, a new guest arrived and I was reminiscent of my interaction with Twelve because this guy also had brown hair back in a ponytail - apparently this is my current type.  I pulled my focus back to the gift exchange, and then the new guy picked his gift out – he went for the fancy packaging, but any pro knows that’s just a trick in this game; he ended up with an am/fm car stereo – I could not stop laughing.  For the rest of the game, we exchanged a few witty comments about his amazing gift.  When the game was over I had to run to catch my bus, so I never got to officially meet him.  My dependency on public transportation is not very helpful.

A couple days later, I decided I needed to find this guy, so I went on to the dependable research place that is Facebook, and looked up the event page for that party and found his name to send him a message that went like this:

Hi Thirteen! Technically you don't know me but I was at the holiday party on Saturday night. I was the girl sitting by the tv (I was the winner of the chopstick set) who could not stop laughing about your amazing car stereo. Sorry for not introducing myself at the party, but I had to run to catch my bus. Without knowing anything about you except that you seem like a fun guy, I wanted to ask if you want to go out with me sometime. Clearly my lack of knowing anything about you means I have no idea if you're single, so if you're not single please ignore this. If you need to check my references to verify that I'm not a complete loon, Anne is the roommate at the party that I know.

Penelope

Twelve

I went to a party where I only knew my friend Rob and the two people with us, so I was determined to line up a date while I was there mingling with strangers.  The people at this party mostly consisted of super smart, save the world types (fyi – I do not fit into that category).  I was hanging out with a new friend who loved the topic of this blog, which led to her opinion about how most of the guys I’m asking out are probably intimidated by my forwardness.  She asked if there was a certain type of guy that I was attracted to, and I told her that I’m trying to be open and ask out different types.  Then I pointed to a guy walking in (he had brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, had probably a 3-day beard going on, and was wearing jeans and a black Patagonia jacket) and told her,  “That’s the guy I would be drawn to.”   Said guy happened to be scanning the room and looked right at me just as I was pointing at him and as my friends were turning to look at him, so I just smiled and kept talking, “Yep, that guy that just witnessed all of that, he’s the guy here that I would go for” (subtlety is clearly not one of my strengths). 

Lo and behold, he walked directly over to us, shook my hand and smiled and said, “Hi.  I’m Twelve.” We introduced ourselves and then I started the our intellectual conversation with, “Twelve, are Luke and Leia from Star Wars twins?”  (We were trying to think of famous twins earlier and were debating on whether or not they were twins).  After Twelve gave us his answer (which was yes), we tried to make connections of who knew whom at the party, which led to him saying he was a mechanical engineer and used to work with the people hosting the party.  My friends started to ask him about his work, and I tried to pay attention to what he was saying while keeping myself from melting on the spot from his smile.  Thirty minutes later, it was time for us to leave, so I asked him (in front of my friends and his), “So, Twelve, if you’re single would you want to go out sometime?”  He smiled, said yes, and got my number.  He also invited us to a costume birthday party (FUN!) that he was hosting for one of his friends the next night, but dang it I already had plans!  Fingers crossed that this handsome, smart, nice guy will call me.

Eleven

Another great night of dancing - once a month a bar I like has MJ & Prince night, where they are the only two musicians who are played the entire night - it is magical, genius, and perfect.  Side note: This is the same place I met Nine, and I was definitely hoping that he would be there - no such luck.  As my friend and I were leaving, a guy that I had seen working the crowd throughout the night walked by.  He was a good-looking dude and definitely knew it.  He didn’t seem douchey (but I've been known to have a high tolerance for douchebags), just really smooth.  When he walked by I made some comment to him about being a lady’s man, and he stopped and said, “Now why’s that?” “Oh, you know you’re a handsome man; I saw you in there making your rounds smiling at all the ladies.”  He chuckled and said, “Hi, I’m Eleven.”  “Eleven, nice to meet you.  I’m Penelope.  What’s your sign?”  “Virgo, former Libra.”  “What?  Did you change your birthday?  I'm a Libra and always a Libra.”  Discovering that I don’t pay much attention to events of the world, Eleven briefly educated me on the earth's rotation and the updated astrological signs.  Then we joked around about the need to redesign all of our Libra tattoos.  All of this led to the clear transition to my follow-up question.

“So, Lady’s Man, how many girlfriends do you have right now?”  “Well, Man’s Lady, zero.  Believe it or not I’ve never had a girlfriend.”  “What?! How is that possible?  I tell you what, I don’t need to be your girlfriend, but I’ll give you my number and we can just go on a date.”  Totally smooth, right?  Eleven gets out his phone and saves my number as "Penelope Man's Lady" and says, “Alright, and then we’ll go to dinner.”  We said goodbye, and then I walked away with my friend who was just rolling her eyes  at me.  I have the most patient and awesome friends ever!