Date #4 - Joseph

I do not like:

• Guys who don't know what deity means.
  
• Guys who don't do laundry so that when they go out to meet a cute girl, they're wearing weird, weird mix-matched items.  Like track pants with dress shoes.  And a winter coat.
  
• Guys who spray binaca in their mouth after lunch.  Who uses the binaca these days??
  
• Guys who say they don't want to cheat on their girlfriend at all, but would like you as a cuddle buddy.  WTF DOES THAT MEAN??
  
• Guys who keep trying to touch you even though you make it clear that you do not want them to.
  
• Guys who type "ur", "u", "wud" (that's for the word "would") in emails.  And whose emails are written as a stream of consciousness.
• Guys you cannot respect.

This was BestBuy guy.  And that's all I need to say about that.

The end.

Like, drunk or minority?

Women who work in the video game industry are confronted with a strange situation.  They are a total minority amongst the sea of men whose presence dominate the industry.  And if you've never been in this situation, the attention will come.  You're a cute girl who's much more pleasing to look at than the gamut of men walking around the building.  Who wouldn't like you?

So then, how does a girl distinguish if you're really liked, or if it's because everything looks better if there are no other girls to compare you against, or if the guy that flirts with you is drunk?

I went to the GWAR concert last night and I had a great time.  It was, in a one-word summary, ridiculous.  Fake blood spraying non-stop from the stage, crazy, spiky, bare-assed costumes, decapitations of president elects and other notable current event figures and people screaming and loving it.  I went with a bunch of guys and one other female.  The one other female is probably around 45 years old, has a kid, and is probably not pursued by the young males that flood the QA department.

And then there is me.  I knew most of the guys that went, some better than others, and we've always been friendly.  I did notice, however, that the interest was definitely stronger and more touchy-feely once outside of the office environment.  They weren't over-the-top obvious about it, but I was able to perceive it.  And once the alcohol came, it was just amplified even more.

So I could definitely pick up on the flirting, the touching, the sixth woman sense that knows these things.  But how real is it?  How much is it because they really think you are awesome, and how much is it because you're the 1 attractive available girl amongst 6 other guys?  And does the alcohol really matter?  Or does it just amplify what already exists?  I know it must be cool to them that I play video games, that I would go to a GWAR concert, that I'm respected at work and I'm easy to get along with.  But if there were 6 other girls that came to this concert, single, young, cute, how would it play out?  And what if nobody drank alcohol?  Would the guys mellow out and not be as blatantly obvious about showing interest in a girl?  Or do the numbers not matter, and it's truly based on who you are?

Again, I'm confident that people find me attractive, but it's just a funny situation to be a girl working at a video game company - your stock instantly goes up without you doing anything spectacular.  I suppose that might not be a bad thing, but it leaves you with a feeling of curiosity as to what the males are thinking when they see a girl walking down the halls at work.

First Happenstance

I've never been one to get picked up on by guys in common place locations, such as the super market, bank or an electronics store. But I had my first encounter of this today at a local Best Buy earlier this evening, and I must say it was more natural than I thought. Here are a few snippets of how this transpired (with improvisations of course, since I'm bad at recalling specific dialogue):

Me: *Drops Blu-ray Wall-E on the floor with a loud clatter. Wall-E lands at some guy's feet*

Me: "Oops, sorry about that!"

Guy: "That's okay, you might want to get another one though."

Me: *Shakes box to hear rattle, picks up a new box*

Me: "Yeah, I think that's a good call."

Guy: "That's a great movie, Pixar makes really amazing stuff. I'm a graphic artist and the animation in the movie was awesome."

Me: "No way, that's cool! Yeah, Pixar is awesome, blalblalblablablablalb..."

Guy: "You have really petite feet."

Guy: *Proceeds to line up his foot next to mine, compares size*

Me: "I suppose so, but I am small myself so I should have small feet!"

Guy: "Let me see your hands."

Guy: *Proceeds to match up his palms against mine, compares size*

Guy: "Your hands are so small too, it's very cute."

Me: "Why thank you, I am still a rather small gal so I should have small hands!"

Guy: "Your waist is tiny too!"

Guy: *Proceeds to put hands on my waist, notes smallness of my waist*

......more idle chatter about how he thinks I have cute small feet, hands, waist, whatever else he could think of

Me: "So what do you do for a living?"

Guy: "I'm a graphic artist for a video game studio."

Me: "Cool, I work in a video game studio as well."

Guy: "Oh yeah? What do you do?"

Me: "I'm a project manager at ******."

Guy: "No way! I used to work at ****** before the 6% layoff. So you work at the **** office then?"

Me: "OMG no way, yeah I do! What a small world!"

.....more chit chat about the layoff and how it affected everyone balbllblabllablba

Guy: "Yeah, you know the economy is bad when everyone around you is getting laid off. My girlfriend's company is shutting down next month.... yeah, I have a girlfriend. :( "

Me: "Awww, really? That's too bad then huh?"

Guy: "Yeah, man, that's really a shame cause you're really cute!"

.......more chit chat about how it sucks that he's not available. And eventually, we figure it's time to reveal names

Guy: "I'm Joseph by the way."

Me: "I'm Lily. Nice to meet you."

Guy: "Yeah, nice to meet you too."

We then proceeded to exchange business cards, noting our personal websites and or email addresses where applicable.

He was cute. Very cute. We made fun of how white he was and he marveled at how tan I was. He had pretty eyes and pretty lashes, and a surfer shirt with slight stains on it, but forgivable and still kinda cute. And it was easy to talk to him, about the movies that were in front of us, about the bad economy and how he thought all girls should be petite, because it's cuter that way. We both had that puppy dog excitement of talking to an attractive stranger, where both parties were obviously interested.

So what now? Who knows. Of course I went and netstalked him, but only got to pull up so much information from the web. It turns out he is my age and he went to art school out in the midwest. And he has a girlfriend, told straight from the horse's mouth. Will he email? Should I email? I probably won't initiate because really, no need to go and actively try and be a homewrecker, right?

But nevertheless, this was my first happenstance encounter with a cute guy in a common place location that left me smiling to myself. Maybe these happenstances will happen more often now!