Laura: a case study in failure

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Ok, so I was at the mall the other day, shopping for a friend's personal shower gift at Macy's (which, ladies, has nice lingerie for cheaper prices that Victoria's Sercret - just a little tip for you). My thoughts were typical: "don't look at the BCBG.... don't look at the BCBG.... Oh man - those dresses are so cute! No - turn away! There's no way you can afford BCBG!"

I decided to stroll over to the Gap to see if I could find some long-sleeve cardigans that would be modest enough to wear to the Middle-East. Believe me, finding anything "modest" around here, especially by Middle Eastern standards is pretty difficult to do this time of year. On my way to the gap, I had to ride the escalator down one floor. As I was in this process, what did my wandering eyes see but two unbelievably cute musicians headed around the base of the down escalator and towards the up one. Guess what - they were both very cute, my age AND taller than me - triple threat! To top it all off, I happened to catch their attention as BOTH of their heads turned to stare at me.

Sounds good so far, right? Oh, but then it all went so horribly wrong.

You see, I was born with some very unfortunate dating abnormalities. Not the least of which is my complete lack of ability to both give signals to and interpret signals from the oposite sex. Basically, if a guy likes me they've pretty much got to walk up and tell me in proper english. They might even have to reinterate it a couple times as I might not pick up on the first attempt. Since there are few guys who are willing to put themselves out there like that - I don't tend to date much. As for my lack of giving signals when I like a guy? Well let's just say that what I typically do really hasn't been working for me either. Let me paint this picture for you...

What did Laura do when she had both of the hottie band boys staring at her while she was on the escalator? Did she lock eyes with them and offer a little smile? No. Did she breezily walk by them, giving them a little "hey" in the process? That would have bee nice. No, Laura decided to look away, then hide at the bottom of the escalator so she wouldn't have to take the chance of running into them again on the other side. Yes - this is how I chose to behave. For the life of me I can't figure out how I'm not a fricken' dating machine by now!

Here was my thought process during this escapade:

"Hmm... what do we have here? Dang! Those guys are cute! They're having a conversation about music, and they're dressed like band guys. Dang! Oh my gosh - they're both checking me out! Um.... um.... Run away!" (as panic sets in).

Now, it's been a goal of mine to be my usual great self around various hotties I come into contact with. And normally, under controlled conditions, I've been doing a lot better. I've even been rocking some quality eye contact as of late. But with a sneak attack such as this, I switched back to my fight or flight reflex mode. Thinking about it now, both parties probably would have benefitted from me not acting like a dope. I'm sure the guys' day would have been much improved from having a hottie like me say hi to them.

But alas, I failed. I get an "F" for the day. Crap.