I've never asked anyone out on a date before. What I have done is expressed my feelings of attraction towards men before...usually it wasn't reciprocated. Having it not be reciprocated never really hurt or disheartened me. Usually the feelings were toward a long time friend & the friendship continued as normal...except for once. The guy sorta freaked out like he was all that and a bag of doritos but I got sick of him acting weird with me, wanted my friend back enough to take him to dinner & explain to him how it needed to work & that he really needed to stop being such an immature putz so our friendship could get back to what it was. After that, we were just as we'd always been. And when he got a girlfriend, eventually we all became friends. They are now married with a daughter & we're still friends. I can detach myself from non-platonic feelings toward a male friend if the friendship means enough to me that I need to let go of the other. Maybe that makes me cold or maybe someone would question the feelings if they could be so easily disregarded but that's just the way I deal.

Getting involved intimately & then having to let go, whole different story. There's actually something to mourn there.

Anyhow, so I have been shot down after exposing feelings so I know what that kind of rejection feels like. But asking a stranger out & being shot down is not something I'm familiar with. What has me thinking about this is my trip to the laundromat tonight. As someone who has not been asked on many dates, I really don't know how the whole thing works but there was this guy at the laundromat tonight who I could clearly see was checking me out. I was talking to this friend of mine for the majority of the time but my friend finished her laundry & left. I'm putting clothes in the dryer & this guy is holding the dryer doors open for me & stuff. I just smiled & thanked him. He says, "So what does a woman do on a Friday or Saturday night?" I kind of rolled my eyes & said, "Read." He asked me if I had a name. I said, "yes." And then there was silence. And then I said, "do you?" And he said yes & told me his name. I softened a little & told him my name. He bombards me with questions...what kind of food do I like, what kind of music do I like, do I watch any t.v. shows, do I have any kids, blah blah blah. I can't even remember his name but he told me that he'd been married twice & that he had a 9 year old daughter. He was from Oregon, liked to hang out at one of the local casinos & go dancing. At some point during his questioning of me, a part of me stepped outside of myself & it was like watching a movie. I watched as this man got closer & closer into my personal space. I watched him checkin out my tits. He did that quite a lot, actually. He finally got to the point of asking me for my number. Told him I didn't give out my number...which is the truth. I told him he could give me his number though. He said he didn't have a phone. I asked him how he was going to call me. He said, looking at my tits, "pay phone." I said, "Hmm, that's unfortunate you don't have a phone. Sorry." He said, "Maybe I'll see you around." I said, "I'm sure you will."

I was flattered he asked me for my number but didn't communicate that in any way. I didn't really think about it. He left & I got to thinking about the risk involved in asking someone out. I think I feminized the whole process by overthinking it. I felt bad for essentially shooting him down. I started wondering if I should have just said that I had a boyfriend or something. But that would have been a lie. The truth is, I DON'T give out my phone number. Had he given me his, I would have called him. Don't know that a date would have materialized out of it but I would have called him. Then I thought, "He probably isn't giving it a second thought so why are you?"

For someone who makes a sport of observing human behavior & how humans interact with one another, I sure am socially inept. Seems I would have learned something thru my __ years of observations.

On a different note, on my way to work this morning, I decided to work on writing a personal mission statement. What am I about? What should my code of behavior be personally? In my occupational setting? What are my beliefs? How do I want my existence to fit in with that of the rest of the human race? I don't know why I want to do this. It just seems like a good idea.