The Sad Ballad of Cute Cafeteria Guy

About two years ago when I started this blog, I committed to not using my own name or the names of my family members. This was to protect me in case I ever want to call my boss stupid or something like that. I decided it would be too complicated, and probably unnecessary to find code names for friends, but if there was a love interest I would use a code name and I gave three examples: Mr. Intimacy Issues, Gerard, and Cute Cafeteria Guy. They weren’t really hypothetical.

Oddly, Gerard is back in the area, and based on my horoscope I believe he is going to call me Wednesday. Mr. Intimacy Issues and I have the same relationship that we did then, and there is no reason to change his code name. Well, there’s no reason in terms of accuracy. Everyone who knows both of us recognized him right away, so I guess it isn’t a very good code name. Quite a lot has happened with Cute Cafeteria Guy, and I thought I would take a moment to reflect on that.

I would say I have been in love twice, and both times it happened at first sight. Some times I have talked myself into liking someone, and that is always a mistake. At other times you get carried along in an unexpected rush of attraction, and maybe you know it is not love, but the flow is pretty strong anyway, and this was more like that. I was not initially attracted. There was nothing wrong with the way he looked or anything; it’s just that my first thought was that he had to be gay.

Perhaps that sounds like an unfair stereotype, but there are generally two types of cashiers that we get in the cafeteria. The most common type is an older, outgoing woman who doesn’t have a lot of skills but does need some extra money. We also get younger girls who haven’t figured out what they want to do yet. There are occasional departures from this formula, but there were never young, handsome, straight guys.

He was remarkably friendly, which did nothing to discourage the stereotype. Still, he did not really give off that vibe. Later on as we started visiting more he mentioned a daughter, but that was still not definitive. I was by this time definitely attracted to him, and I was starting to feel that he was attracted to me. I know his eyes would light up when he would see me, but he was still so friendly to everyone else that it was hard to know how special I was. That’s the problem with nice guys.

At this point I knew quite a bit about him. A lot of it was good, like he was also an artist and a drummer, and those were things that just made him more attractive. I also knew more about his previous job history, and it started making more sense that he was in this job.

Other things did not mesh. He liked hot dry places like Arizona, and I am a complete green Oregonian. We both liked Law & Order, but I prefer SVU and he liked Criminal Intent. They were little things, but they were symbolic of the more important disparities making a successful romance unlikely.

The biggest issue was time. Often I felt like we were on the verge of making a breakthrough, and someone else would come into line and I would have to go. It is hard to progress very far in one minute a day. It was still a minute to look forward to.

The most flustering moment did not happen with him. I needed something quick, so I went through a different line in the other café. The cashier (one of the young girls) was really excited, and she knew my name, and she said “You’re Jason’s girlfriend!” Then she excitedly let me know it was his birthday, and I should go wish him a happy one.

I just said that he had mentioned it, and we had talked about his birthday earlier, but my mind was still reeling from the girlfriend thing, and from being known by name. Obviously, she could not really have thought I was his girlfriend, or she should have expected that I would already know about the birthday. I think what was in her mind was that this is the girl that seems to like him and he seems to like back, but that is longer and complicated and it just came out girlfriend. It seems we were a topic of workplace gossip.

It was interesting, but it was such a wasted opportunity. I should have said something like, “Did he say that? Then he better ask me out!” If I could have said something kind of light, but that confirmed my interest, I think that would have been good. I was just too floored in the moment to think of anything. Anyway, that moment slipped past, and then later he started mentioning a girlfriend, and then I saw him with the girlfriend, and one day I came up behind someone congratulating him and he was getting married that weekend. I congratulated him too, and really, I never expected us to work out, but it was kind of a bummer.

Friends tried to be supportive, but the supportive comments ranged from “It won’t last” to “Now you can flirt with him guilt-free.” Actually, marriage to me means you don’t flirt at all. I was worried about it being weird, but he never came back from his honeymoon. Yay?

There were good things about it too. First of all, he was a truly nice guy, and it was fun interacting with him. Also, it was nice believing that someone could like me, and not having it end in catastrophe (that sentence references some horrific times). The best thing was, and I will sound like a terrible person here, but I need to do that periodically, after seeing her, I am cuter. I can’t say that very often, but it made me feel like I was not completely delusional.

I also learned some things about myself. It was analyzing my attraction to him that helped me pinpoint my ideal height range, which gave me insight into why I was not attracted to certain other guys. This is a shallow insight.

The deeper insight came once when I was going to meet a friend, and I had missed him at lunch and I just decided to go see if I could see him for a minute, without any reason than saying hello, and I did. As I walked away, feeling like a dork, I realized that I cannot imagine being smooth. I have mental pictures of what my life would be like if I were rich or thin or other things, and my ideas may be wrong, but at least I can conceive of something. Being suave is completely alien. And I also realized that I felt just the same way that I did in junior high. However, that was when I stopped believing that I had any romantic chance at all, so it makes sense that I stopped developing there at fourteen. This crush was a big steppingstone for me. Romantically, I think I am close to sixteen now. I’m almost ready to date.

Odd. After yesterday’s entry, I was just thinking how I am turning into this curmudgeon griping about modern times, and one month away from turning 36. Well, 30 is the new 21 and 40 is the new 30, and my RealAge is 34 but relationship wise I am still in my mid-teens (jail bait), so yeah, I’m turning 36.