I had always thought the first time was Phillip.
Phillip was a Marine and stunning. He was in my Biology for Non-Science Majors lecture section during sophmore year of college. He sat front and center in a lecture hall of 100 people, focused on his coursework and not on all the people around him. Every single female in the place, though, was focused on him. One hot day he changed his shirt right there in front of the class and the intake of breath from all women there was audible enough that several guys looked around to try to figure out what the heck the sound was.
Since my home life at that point in time was horrid at best, and my boyfriend at the time was at another school, I spent every waking minute I wasn't working or sleeping trying to find something to do with myself, so I started to hang out in the school library. Some nights I was all to myself and I would study until I couldn't study anymore, then I'd read. Other nights I was able to find a classmate to study with, which usually devolved to socializing at some point.
One night, Phillip was there and had spread out on one of the few large tables in the place. There weren't any other places around, so I screwed up my courage and asked if I could join him. Turns out, he was gorgeous AND a nice guy. We started studying together a couple of nights a week.
A few weeks after we'd started studying together, he caught up with me outside of our lecture hall, and asked me to get a cup of coffee with him.
"No, I don't drink coffee."
Palm, meet forehead.
The supremely stupidly doofusy thing about it is that at the time I HAD NO IDEA that coffee wasn't really the point of that invitation. I guess since I wouldn't have dreamed of cheating on my boyfriend it never even crossed my mind that someone else would invite me to do so. It's unfortunate, in a way, considering that at the time my boyfriend was busy sleeping with the music department at his school. Damned integrity.
It took me YEARS to figure out Phillip was asking me out. Clueless.
A couple of years later I took a night class, and there was a guy who was Tom Cruise's doppelganger (before the crazy, of course). He was nice and we discovered we were both NASCAR fans when I wrote a paper about meeting Mark Martin and we had to read our papers out loud to the class. I didn't want to walk home so late at night, so my roommate would drive my car over to pick me up after class. Since this was in the days before cell phones, I'd call her from a pay phone after class got out and then wait for her.
Tom had a motorcycle, and every night after class he'd stand around outside where I waited for my roommate, because he had to wait for the bike to warm up before he'd go home. At least, that's what he told me. We talked and became good friends. I found out months later that he'd planned to ask me out the last night of class, but I missed it because my boyfriend's mother (the same cheating boyfriend) was in the hospital and I turned in my final paper early and skipped class to come home to see her. (I also found out about the cheating the following week, but that's another story for another time) Months later after I'd ditched the cheater, Tom and I saw each other on campus, he told me about his plan, and we did end up dating for a while.
Years later I was talking to my husband about this and he said "You know he didn't need to wait for his bike to warm up that much, don't you?" Um, well, now that you mention it, it makes sense...
Several years after Tom, after I was married, a co-worker asked me to go to the movies, during the day, when we were supposed to be working. I was busy at work and told him I had to finish up my project, but maybe some other time. When I related this to my husband that evening, he looked at me as though I'd grown two heads, though honestly at that point he shouldn't have been surprised.
"You do know he wasn't really asking you to the movies, right?"
Um. No.
It's happened many other times over the years, and I've almost gotten to the point where I can figure out when I'm being propositioned when it happens. Almost.
This has been on my mind because recently, a friend posted on facebook about her kids looking at her old yearbooks, which in turn caused me to dig mine out and look at them. And of course, in several places, there is written evidence of my own cluelessness. Apparently subtlety is lost on me. Completely. It's honestly a wonder I ever dated anyone. My husband favored a rather direct approach, which is a good thing, or we might not even be here with 4 kids and a dog and a mortgage and a minivan and this blog. God help me if anything ever happens to him and I have try dating again.
So the lesson? If you're going to make a pass at me and you want me to notice? You'd better spell it out specifically. Perhaps with a billboard.
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