So I was out to dinner last night with guess who at the Cap City Brewery. When she and I get together for dinner, it turns into a 4 hour festival of girl-talk. (Of course, if the restaurant is busy and it looks like people are waiting for tables, we decamp to have our chat elsewhere, but that is usually not the case when we get together.)
There we are, chatting away, when a gentleman in a suit strolls up to our table and introduces himself. He’s a magician, and he performs close-up illusions at local restaurants and whatnot. He gave us his business cards, and proceeded to do a trick which started with him asking to sign my name and phone number on a piece of paper.
Uh-huh.
I pulled the same thing I pull when store cashiers ask for my phone number- I wrote down a, um, slightly modified version of my number. He folded the piece of paper, unfolded it, and showed his own signature instead of mine.
Now, I should probably note at this point that I used to be a clown. Like, with makeup and a wig and the whole bit. Including magic tricks. I’ve loved that kind of stuff since I was a kid, so for most of the show I was following along pretty well- I’ve gotten good at figuring out where I’m not supposed to look and looking there. It’s what I do.
So I was following the tricks pretty well. That’s not to say that he was a bad magician- he was quite skilled in the execution and his patter was pretty entertaining. But I knew how he did most of it and was restraining my inner know-it-all. He seemed like a nice guy and we had an interesting conversation about this side gig versus his day job.
And then I looked down at his business card. “Oh, you work at [pretty famous organization]!”
Our magician friend turned white. “How did you know that?!”
“You’re using your day job email address on your magician business card. I recognize the domain name.” Also, I’m a recruiter, so why wouldn’t I recognize one of the largest employers in the area?
He eventually bid us goodnight to go have some dinner. When I got to work today, I thought I’d offer him a Gmail invite, introduce myself professionally (always networking!), thank him for stopping by the table, etc.
I got a nice email back from him and was pretty pleased about that.
A few hours later, my office phone rang. The magician!
He was having a little trouble figuring out how to accept the Gmail invite (he said), so I explained how it all worked… and then he asked me out for a drink next week.
Um.
I admit, I did not handle this well. I don’t know how to be polite while also saying, “No, I’m not interested, thank you.” Meanwhile, my officemates are having work conversation around me, a client is holding for me and the phone is beeping, and I’m racking my spread-too-thin brain for the social etiquette of declining a date with someone who can’t remember that I told him about my boyfriend less than 24 hours before.
The end result of the next few lines of conversation was that I had to hang up the phone to do my job, and I fear that I may have embarrassed this guy a little.
My coworkers, who do an admirable job of pulling double-duty as sympathetic girlfriends, immediately insisted that I shouldn’t feel bad about it. After all, I was nice to him even in my declining of the invitation…
“After all,” Erin said, “it’s not like you said, ‘Why don’t you try pulling a GIRL out of that hat?!’”
BAHAHAHA!
But seriously people… wtf? This never used to be an issue for me. I’m not someone who gets hit on a lot. I’m not accustomed to being asked out by random near-strangers. I never learned the unique etiquette nuances of these social situations.
And when did THAT change? Did I suddenly become cuter than before? Or is my sparkling wit suddenly in fashion this year?
I don’t get it.
I might let my hair stay past my shoulders if it’s going to be like this all the time now… Like Amalah says, having great hair is as simple as not buying your shampoo at Rite Aid and going someplace better than Hair Cuttery to get it cut.
