AI

An acquaintance approached me with the idea of setting me up with one of his friends, and the reasons were, "You two are the nicest people I know, you both go to church, and his sister lives with him and you live with your sister." Not the strongest reasons in the world (there are plenty of nice people, church-going people, and people that live with family that I don't need to date), but I told him it was fine if he wanted to play matchmaker. Then he mentioned that the guy lives in a town that's over an hour away from me. I told my friend if he was going to set us up I needed him to know that (a) I'm not great at dating and that I didn't want him to be mad if nothing ended up happening, and (b) that I was not excited about the distance. He assured me he wouldn't be upset if I didn't like the guy and that as far as distance he'd told his friend that I lived in the city and didn't have a car and he was happy to come into the city to take me out on a date.

A few days later I got a text from the guy a few days later introducing himself, and over the next week our text exchange was so formal that I swear I was communicating with a computer, so this guy is aptly named AI.

Exhibit A:
AI: Sounds like you had a fun night. Girls night out?
Me: It's SF beer week and while I despise beer I love my friends and one of them was out promoting his brewery at a pub, so a few of us went out to support him.
AI: That's cool that you're willing to take one for the team to support your friends. It shows you're a loyal friend.
Me: Nah, I'm just a social butterfly.

Exhibit B: He asked what my weekend plans were, and I mentioned that I was going to a concert and a fundraiser for Haiti...
AI: Wow, you are a Social Butterfly. I think it's great to hear all the things you have planned. I think it's great you do fundraising dinners. Shows your Humanitarian Aid side of you. I'm sure your friends on Social Media may envy your lifestyle, too.

Yes, he was very nice and affirming of my decisions, however, he was a bit too formal. However I stuck with it for over a week when finally he told me he was coming into the city on Friday during the day to meet some friends before going to Tahoe. Then he asked if he showed up around mid-day if I was able to meet him. I told him, "It won't work out for me to meet you then, but I hope you have a great weekend!" While I was fine with meeting AI in general, I wasn't going to juggle my work schedule around to make it happen. He never responded to that and two weeks later I haven't heard back from him. I initially thought about following up and asking how his weekend was, but since I knew I wasn't interested I decided not to engage him and string him along.

All in all he seemed like a polite, nice guy (or computer, I'll never know now), but I need some flirty banter mixed in with the nice.

Seventy-Three

There are a lot of bike messengers that are continuously coming into the building where I work, and they're all friendly, sarcastic, and rough around the edges so I obviously love it. One guy came in this week and was trying to deliver something to another company in the building but wasn't having any luck, so he came over to where I was sitting and asked if I could help. He happened to interrupt a very important conversation I was having with a co-worker about giving people the thumbs-up sign. My co-worker said he didn't think people used it enough for people to know what I was doing (I've been in this phase of casually saluting co-workers or giving them thumbs up when they walk by rather than waving). When I told Seventy-three that the people he was looking for didn't work with me and that I couldn't be of any help he gave the thumbs down sign while he said these people were sending him on a wild goose chase. I told him good luck and he thanked me and complimented my dinosaur earrings as he walked away. He was cute and I was feeling ambitious, so I quickly wrote my name and number down on a post-it and chased him down and said, "This is completely unprofessional...if you can't get a hold of those people, you can always call me." He smiled and said, "Will do."

A few hours later he texted me a simple, "Hi Penelope, this is Seventy-three from earlier." I replied, "Hi! Thumbs up for using my number." Then I followed up the next day with, "Post-work ice cream today?" I didn't hear anything from him and didn't think anything of it. Then the next day he messaged me, "Hey, sorry I took so long to reply. A post-work ice cream would've been nice, but I was busy yesterday. I should let you know that I have a girlfriend. If you'd still like to have a post-work snack sometime though, I'd be very much down!"

My first instinct was, "Too bad he has a girlfriend, but yay for honesty!" My second thought was, "Wait, he still wants to meet up? Does he want me to be his mistress?!" My final thought was, "This guy was honest, good for him. AND he likes having friends, yay!" So I finally replied, "Of course you have a girlfriend! Thanks for being up front about that. But yeah, let's be friends and hang sometime." And now I wash my hands of it. If we become friends and he introduces me to one of his cute bike messenger friends and we fall in love and I learn to ride my bike and live happily ever after, then so be it.