on Playing the Field: I'm Easy
Well, well, well. Just look at you, walking into this dreary, hole-in-the-wall bar and lighting the place up, twirling your hair pensively as you search the room–for what? For a soul mate, perhaps?
I know, I know. I hate that phrase, too. Maybe that will end up being one of our things. You know, how like some couples hate the same thing? Yeah, that could be our thing, hating that word. Maybe even a few weeks from now, lying in bed on a bright, crisp Sunday morning, I’ll ask you, “What’s your least favorite word or phrase?,” and you’ll say, “Soul mate,” and I’ll laugh until you say, “What? Tell me!” And I’ll tell you how I knew from the moment I first laid my eyes on you.
I'm getting ahead of myself. You haven't even noticed me yet.
I see you’ve spotted the friends you came to meet. They look like nice people, I suppose.
Maybe they’ll be my friends one day, too.
Our friends.
Your almond-shaped eyes, so beautiful that they would make Nefertiti herself weep with envy, come to life as you notice them. This is love, I think. I can’t help but notice how elegantly you seem to glide across the room toward your friends and suddenly shriek at them, “What the hell is up, yo?,” in a voice so surprisingly piercing that the entire bar actually goes silent for a moment. I can’t help but notice the bartender checking the liquor bottles along the shelf to ensure none of them have cracked.
You continue in your bellows of every utterance; lines ranging from, “Jäger is the bomb, dawg!,” to, “Aww fuck! Weezy is my SHIT! MONA LISA! MONA LISA!,” to, “Random! Random! Random!” Christ, you must be a regular here.
Duration of crush: nineteen seconds
Oh my. What have we here? A cold, rainy night in the city has cleared the sidewalks of all but the most intrepid souls, and those who couldn’t brave the elements have no idea what they’re missing. Because there you are, coasting along on your bicycle, only a few feet ahead of me; simply a snug, white shirt on you, soaked through the skin, clinging to the small of your back. You pedal so majestically as you raise your face towards the sky, allowing the beads of rain to bless your gorgeous (I’m simply assuming you’re gorgeous; I haven’t seen you yet!) face with sweet diamonds of moisture.
Do I dare try to catch up to you? I’m on foot jumbling books and my gym bag. You’ve paused at a red light and–oh, what the hell? I don’t know what I’ll say to you, but I understand that even the clumsiest of introductions, those that will see me a nervous wreck, rambling on and on about “this crazy weather” while on this seemingly surreal, nighttime glistening street. It is those very introductions that will provide us with a romantic how-we-met anecdote that we’ll love telling for years to come.
In retrospect, I’m probably getting a bit ahead of myself. I mean, you haven’t even noticed me yet. That’s okay, my love, because I’m on the way.
Caught you! Here I am! And there you are. A dude. I see now that you're a dude. My mistake. It was the ponytail that threw me off. Cut that shit off, bro. The fuck!
Duration of crush: twenty-seven seconds
So silly does my impatience now seem, stuck as I am in the Starbucks line during the morning rush. But that was before I noticed you in line ahead of me.
And now that I’ve seen you—with your gossamer hair still damp from the shower, your well-moisturized ankles strapped and buckled into high heels that make you wobble and sway like a young colt just finding her stride, your scent of lilacs and Head & Shoulders, and, most of all, your infectious sense of calmness and serenity. Now you’re at the register, and the dreaded moment when we part without meeting rushes toward me like a slow-motion car crash in a dream.
I wish that the world itself would stop spinning, so that gravity would cease and we two could float into the sky and kiss in the clouds, giddy with love and vertigo—
You’ve been at the register without saying anything for, like, fifteen seconds now. Still scanning the menu board, huh? Seriously, you’ve been to a Starbucks before, right? I mean, it seems like there are a lot of choices, but most people find a drink they like and stick with it. And order it quickly. But maybe I’ve caught you on a day when you’ve decided to make a fresh start, to try a new drink, to walk a different way to work, to finally dump that boyfriend who doesn’t appreciate you.
O.K., even if that were the case you could have picked out your new drink while you were waiting in line, right? I mean, come on.
Well, you’ve won me back, my future Mrs. Me—by turning to me and mouthing, “Sorry,” after you finally noticed me tapping my foot, looking at my watch, and exhaling loudly. Sensitivity like that can be neither learned nor taught, and it’s a rare thing indeed. The rarest of all possible—Jesus Christ, you’ve ordered your drink and paid; do I really have to stand here for another forty-five seconds while you repack your purse, the contents of which you’ve spilled out on the counter like you’re setting up a fucking yard sale or something?
That’s right, the bills go in the billfold, the coins go in the little coin purse, the billfold and the coin purse go back in the pocket—yep, the other pocket, which seems to have a clasp whose design incorporates some proprietary technology that you haven’t yet mastered.
I think I hate you now.