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.