single black male

All I wanted was a panini.  I didn’t know they were going to throw in a side order of STALKER.

This is going to be a long entry because a lot has happened.  I’ve been trying to be good and write shorter, more concise entries so I think I deserve this big ass chronicle of my latest social failure.  You’re gonna read it and you’re gonna like it!

Just kidding.  You don’t have to read it.  In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t because it’s pretty embarrassing in hindsight.

Two Thursdays ago, I went into a coffee shop during my lunch break at work.  I just wanted to grab a sandwich and leave.  I walked in and this guy sitting at a table next to the front counter took out his ear buds and pointed at me.  And then his eyes grew big and he said he thought I was someone else.  I told him it was no big deal and I have one of those recognizable faces.  He was a chunky African American guy with thick black framed glasses, and an unkempt beard.  He wore a holey red hoodie over a gray vest and black shirt.  I sat at a table on the other side of the shop (it’s a small shop) and heard the guy giggle.  He didn’t stop until I looked over at him and he said he couldn’t believe he pointed me out like that and it felt awkward.  Well, I didn’t think it was all that awkward until he started giggling like that but I shrugged and told him it was no big deal.

I got my gooey mozzarella panini and as I exited, he told me to have a good day.  Always trying to exercise my social skills, I stopped and told him to have a good day as well and if I ever saw him again (foreshadowing), it wouldn’t be awkward anymore because he could say he knew me but just as the guy he confused for someone else.  He scrunched his face and giggled again.  I asked him who I looked like in the very slim chance I might know the person and he gave the guy’s name and of course I didn’t know him but he asked for my name so I told him and he told me his name and then I was out the door.

I didn’t think anything of it until the following Monday.

The guy came into my work.

We saw each other and smiled in recognition.  He asked me if I went to high school with a certain girl and I told him I did and he said he was good friends with the girl’s brother.  And he told me he also went to SCAD at the Atlanta location.  I thought that was interesting because I hadn’t met anyone around my area who attended SCAD.  And he told me he was also good friends with the too-cool-for-school hipster douche (HD) I mentioned in my last entry.  

"It’s a small world," I said.

He scrunched his face and giggled again.  I got a strong gay vibe from him, which isn’t unusual.  Gay guys love me and gravitate toward me.  I guess it’s because I’m non-threatening and not homophobic in the slightest.  I feel like Cher a lot of the time.  Plastic face, plastic soul, whatever.  He was there to pick out an outfit for a play he was attending that night and we talked for a while about SCAD and our future plans.  I immediately thought he could be a good person to network with in regard to jobs.  

I think I found our conversation interesting because in some ways we were similar.  Both artists.  Both slightly weird.  Both wanting to get out of our town.  Being inundated with grumpy old white-haired people all day gets exhausting so he was kind of refreshing to speak with for a while.

He eventually said he needed to go but didn’t want to just stop talking to me so he asked for my number.  I honestly didn’t think much about it.  As I said, I thought about possible job connections so I gave it to him.  He seemed harmless enough at the time, if not a bit eccentric.  But he wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen at SCAD before.  Typical art school gay.  He liked to use jazz hands and many accented asides.  He even sang a line from Fiddler on the Roof, the play he was going to see that night.

After the play, he texted me so I could have his humber.  Fine.  We casually text back and forth for a while and then he said he was into numerology and wanted to read my numbers and so I gave him some information and he analyzed the results and told me about my life path.  I humored him because I think there’s something to all that but I’m not a hardcore believer.  I just thought it might be interesting.

And then he asked me to have sushi with him and I told him that Friday would work for me.  The weird part was I had been craving sushi for the past couple of weeks but I had no one to go with.  My former coworker who got the assistant supervisor job at the pharmacy said he never came to this area anymore because his job was so far out of town and my only other option was my acquaintance who is stuck to her cell phone and ain’t nobody got time for that so I thought the worst that could happen was I’d get to have my sushi with some good conversation.  Hopefully. 

Wednesday, he asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to so I told him I was at work and he said he could wait until my lunch break so I reluctantly said yes.  I don’t even know why.  I guess I was still trying to feel him out so I agreed.  We had lunch together and he kept going on about what the numbers were telling him about me and suddenly, he looked me straight in the face and said, "I believe we met for a reason.  I think I’m here to help you grow as a person."

Uhh, wut?

He talked as he ate and never bothered to wipe his mouth and got cheeseburger stuck to his lip which grossed me out and I looked down at his fingers as he picked at his fries and he had dirt under his nails and I realized he had a faint odor about him like stale cigarettes and the slightest body odor.  Oh, God.  He then asked me if I was gay at all and I told him no and he said it was a shame.  

I felt creeped out after lunch but I still had to do sushi with him.  I didn’t want to be rude and cancel on him and dang it, I wanted that sushi.

That night he texted me some astrological mumbo jumbo.  At that point, I started giving one word answers and didn’t engage him in his conversation.  But he kept on going.  I felt uncomfortable, like he was coming on too fast and too strong.

Thursday, he sent a text message asking if I wanted to have lunch again.  I replied no.  Just before my shift ended at work, he sent another text asking if I wanted to read an article he wrote.  I said I would and he asked where we wanted to meet.  I told him I thought he would just e-mail it to me and I wasn’t up to meeting.

Friday rolled around and he came into my work…again…about an hour before my shift ended and just hung out and it was uncomfortable for me.  I finally got off work and I suggested we each take our own cars there and he agreed.  He said he needed to to go the bathroom as I clocked out.  He left and I told the girl who came in to replace me about how creepy the guy was and how I was starting to worry he might be overly into me. 

I left work and we arrived at the restaurant and he started naming off all the dishes in his best attempt to sound authentic, which just made him sound pretentious and obnoxious, like how Giada de Laurentiis tries to say every Italian word in the traditional manner but totally overshoots.  "During the break, I boiled the water for the SPEEGEETEE."  You know what I mean.

Then, he said he wanted us to look into each other’s eyes for five minutes to "get a better understanding of one another."  He said normally he’d ask the person to hold hands with him but he would spare me.  I responded with a definite no.  

We kept talking, which mostly consisted of him going into another monologue about how no one was like him and most people can’t handle his intensity and he’s studying aikido and neuro-linguistic programming and doing art consulting work and he has a near genius intellect and he was unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.

"And you’re humble, too," I added.

It wasn’t his intensity I couldn’t handle.  It was his bragging and how he contradicted my statements and corrected me when I said something and how he threw all of his high brow interests at me like I should be impressed.  I just felt overwhelmed and put off.

And he got some NEEGEEREE stuck to his lip during the process.

"Just wipe your damn mouth, just once.  Just once!" I wanted to scream.

Occasionally, he stopped and grimaced.  I asked him what was wrong and he shook his head as if he came out of some revery and said he was just thinking about something, studying my body language.  I wondered if I had given away how uninterested in him I was.  I guess not because he kept going.  I nodded and mmhmmed my way through the conversation.

And then he wanted to talk more about me and I filled in the gaps of the story I had already told him through texts.  He analyzed my problems and told me how to fix them, which really just amounted to him giving me positive encouragement and cliche inspirational quotes ("God didn’t promise sunshine without some rain" and "if you conceive it, you can achieve it"), nothing life-changing in the slightest.  But he dropped this knowledge on me like he was dropping revelations.  I could actually see him mentally pulling out pages from different self-help books he had stored in his mind.  It wasn’t working.  It felt more robotic, like he had dished out these gems to unsuspecting depressed people before.

As he prattled on, I couldn’t help enter my own revery.  I watched his dirty nails as they gestured emphatically and I wondered why work girlfriend couldn’t be this into me.  Why couldn’t she be on the other side of the coffee and conversation?  Of course, I mention her because she was the only one I’d actually want there but it could have been any girl I might have had a chance with.  And damn it, if I wanted a guy, I think I could do a lot better than him.

The only useful information I got from him was when we briefly talked about HD.  Since they were supposed to be friends, I asked him why HD seemed so standoffish.

"Probably because he feels threatened by you."

"What?  Why would he feel threatened?"

"Because you’re hot and funny and insanely interesting."

Easy for him to say.  He had a crush on me.  But for a second, I wondered if maybe he was right.  What if HD’s impolite behavior wasn’t meant out of malice but out of his own insecurity?  But I just didn’t believe it.  He has no reason to be insecure.  Of course, everyone is insecure about something but I guess what I mean to say is when you compare both of us, he wins in every conceivable category I can come up with.  But his words did make me think for a second. 

After about three hours, he noticed I was tired from the long work day and from his exhausting explanations of how "all we have is this moment, right here, right now."  I realized I still had to get some things from the grocery store and I didn’t want to run into him there by chance and have him think I wasn’t really tired and just wanted to get away from him (although that was the case) because I’m just too freaking nice.  So, as we walked out, I mentioned I was tired but still needed to pick up a few things.

"I’ll go with you," he said.

"Uhh.  That’s not really necessary." 

"Oh, I have nothing else to do.  Here, we’ll take your car," he said as he dashed to my vehicle.

Great.  Great.

So, we get to the grocery store and who do I see but the same coworker who I vented to right before I left work, telling her how sketchy I thought the guy was.  Now, I was the one looking sketchy because I was hanging out with him.  As soon as I saw her, I did a sharp 90 degree turn into the nearest aisle.  I then walked around the entire length of the grocery store to avoid her while picking up the items I needed.

Eventually, we got out of there (I hoped I wasn’t spotted), I dropped him off at his vehicle, and sped home.  I half-worried he’d follow me but after checking my rear-view mirror several times, I didn’t notice any long-term headlights behind me.  I thought I was safe.

Saturday, he wanted to hang out again.  I declined.  Sunday, at work, as soon as I opened the store (I was supervisor that day while the usual supervisors prepped for inventory that night), he walked in!  I immediately turned the other way but a customer walked in with him and headed toward the department I was in.  HD happened to be working at the time so I called him over to help the customer and when I turned around, there the guy was.

"Heeey," I said, no hiding my hesitation over his presence.

"Hey.  I actually came here to talk to him," he said as he pointed at HD.

"Oh, okay."  I looked and noticed the customer leave the department.  "Well, looks like he’s available now."  He turned around and I quickly walked to the other side of the store.

After he left, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Thirty minutes later, he sent me a text message saying HD told him I was supervisor for the day.  He told me to breath and relax and that I would be great at it.  Groan.  He then texted saying he’d give me some space to concentrate and reserve my energy for the job.  Thank goodness.  No more text messages.

Yet, when my shift was over, another text from him:  Wanna have dinner tonight?

Holy shit, son.

I declined again.  

Over the next several days, he sent increasingly incoherent philosophical text messages and more requests asking me to hang out with him and I kept declining and sending one word replies hoping he would get the message that I didn’t want to hang out with him, or talk to him, or text him, or have him in my life at all.  He sent a text saying he was initially drawn to me because he was very physically attracted to me but when he got to know me, he was more interested in my mind.  Yeah!  Maybe he tried to convince himself of that.  He said he wanted to help me find my purpose and passion again.  I think he just wanted to find his passion in my pants.

I eventually stopped replying all together because I just didn’t know what else to say and I was too much of a puss to just tell him I didn’t want to speak to him anymore.  Although I thought he was creepy to the max, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and I didn’t want him to dislike me.  I hate when people dislike me.

Monday, he sent a text wishing me a great, positive day.  That night, he sent a text wishing me a great, dream-filled sleep.

Tuesday, he asked me to have coffee with him.  I declined.  Later that night, he sent more text messages.  I did not reply.  He must have finally started understanding my discomfort because he texted again and said he thought he was out of line with me.  He said he was poking and prodding me when really I just needed someone to be there to listen to me.  He has a habit of telling me how I feel, which also gets on my nerves.  

I eventually replied and said, yes, poking and prodding only pushed people away.  I hoped he’d understand I was talking about pushing me away without actually having to say it.  Yes, I know.  I’m a puss.  He sent a message back saying he would try to remember in the future.  I wished him luck with that.  He then corrected me and said he was good enough not to need luck.  So obnoxious!  For someone who seems to know it all, he couldn’t take a clue.  I amended my statement and told him I hoped he would remember not to push.  He wished me a good night.  I did not reply.

I hope things will just taper off.  Maybe he won’t be so awestruck after a while.  Or I might have to get firm and tell him straight out.  It would be the mature, reasonable thing to do but I don’t like confrontation so I’ll just see how long I can endure this.

I try to be social.  Although I’m not sure if I believe in friendship, I’m open to the idea and believe in the benefits of friendship and would like to have friends.  And I am lonely.  And I do crave conversation sometimes.  And I think that’s why I gave this guy a chance.  He could help me find work in the future and he could be a good candidate for a good talk.  I didn’t want to deny him so quickly because I could have also denied myself.  

The fact that he’s gay doesn’t bother me.  Even the fact that he likes me doesn’t bother me.  I just don’t care for his personality.  I don’t like the bragging and forwardness and feeling like I’m conversing with a talking textbook, just spitting out random facts and figures for me to digest like I’m cramming for a midterm.

The whole interaction has left me feeling disenchanted.  I know most people aren’t like this but why do I keep getting this.  To compound the problem, I’ve been trying to reach out to more writers lately and I found one I particularly found interesting and she does not seem interested in talking to me.  It’s almost like a reverse situation between me and the guy.  At least I hope it’s a lack of interest on her part and not the fact that she thinks I’m a total creeper.  So I have one person who is way too into me and another who I’m kind of into but who is not into me at all.

It seems I can hardly ever mesh with people.  Someone always ends up too attached while the other person is left lacking.  It makes me want to withdraw all together.  These past couple of weeks have been frustrating trying to dodge this guy’s advances while having my own dodged by someone else.  Is this karma?  Is this more divine punishment?  Or do I need to wash my hands (and wipe my mouth) of it all?