Feelin a Whole Lotta Love

Last week the word sexy was used in reference to my being for the first time. It took me aback. Quite like I suggested in my last post, I became quite uncomfortable. I definitely laughed, probably denied the truth behind the statement. He was rather good-looking, a cameraman and wannabe actor. Did it amount to anything tangible? No, it did not. But the sheer fact that it happened was enough for me. So what were the factors that led to such a moment?

1. Holiday party. Who doesn’t love a good holiday party? The chance to see your coworkers loose and trashed is always bound to be priceless.
2. Good style day. Black pencil skirt. White V-neck top. Black sweater vest with jazzy sparkles. Hair I actually put effort into. And more makeup than I normally put on in all 4 days I work. It was enough to make people see me differently - in some cases, for the first time - during the work day, and I’d venture to say it was enough to contribute to the sexy moniker.
3. Alcohol. There’s a reason they call alcohol liquid courage. I’ve been drinking for a few years now, but I haven’t ever really used alcohol to my advantage ... until last week. There were no barriers between me and anyone. Since those broken barriers didn’t involve anything as drastic as a striptease, I think that’s a relatively good thing (but only if you’re 21, of course).
4. Karoke. It’s an art form that many enjoy, but only few can really master. I’ve always enjoyed, but I mastered for the first time at that holiday party. With an actual band backing me, I took on Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and I won. There was singing, there was wailing, and there was hip-shaking in what I remember to be all the right places. It’s this instance that caused the camera man to come up to me in the first place. Turns out he’s a fan of the Led, and finally my love of classic rock has a purpose.

All of these specifics, don’t they just add up to the one big-picture adjective that really changed my fortunes that night? That adjective is a little thing called confidence. It’s not something I normally have astronomical amounts of, but with all of those factors melding and meshing together, suddenly I had tons. I let loose. I was completely myself. And suddenly someone respected that. Someone found that attractive. And even if it was only that fleeting moment in which I was crooning about coolin and droolin (check the lyrics), it happened.

So now the trick is to figure out how to bottle up that feeling and drink it in when I’m not drunk in December imitating Robert Plant. I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that to varying degrees of success. Networking event in which I had a group of guys laughing? Success. Trying to charm the former stand-up comedian I work with? Failure. But at least I tried. And maybe, just maybe, if I continue on this streak of confidence, I’ll be able to figure out exactly which guy is worth the effort.

When Harry Befriended Sally...

You’re at a bar. A guy you know and are may (sort of) interested in tells someone the two of you “clicked” as soon as you met. Does this mean:

1. He thinks you’re destined to be great friends.
2. He thinks you’re destined to be more than friends.
3. It doesn’t mean anything because he’s a guy and guys don’t talk with subtext.

How does a girl go about determining the right answer without the ability to look into the future and actually see his endgame? Words like “click” and “connect” mean different things to different people. If I were using such a word, it would most likely imply choice B, but I have learned my subtext and a men’s subtext are even less compatible than me and men.

But if I were in that situation, more than wondering about the context of a single word, I would inevitably be pondering a deeper question: have I already been friend-zoned? The “friends zone” is rather legendary, especially when you’re in college, where the attitude implies that if he didn’t want to hook up with you right away, it probably means he’ll never be interested. In the real world, where it’s commonly frowned upon to jump every attractive person you see, does this attitude hold up? Or was the attitude bogus to begin with?

We’ve all seen When Harry Met Sally and thought, “Wow, that’s the way to do it.” You meet someone, become good friends, after an indeterminate amount of time one of you is upset, the other comes to the rescue, and bing bang boom you’re making out on a sofa, knowing there’s been more between you all along. It’s the perfect melding of choices A and B. It would be easy to cast off the “friends become lovers” story as Hollywood made - except that there’s always someone in your life that fits the scenario: Friend, friend of a friend, or newspaper wedding announcement. 

For me, it’s my own brother. He became friends with his wife when he was 16 years old and interested in her best friend. It took quite a few months, but he soon realized he was going after the wrong girl. Seventeen years, two dogs, and one impending baby later, they’re still together. And the list goes on. The friend from high school I found out got together with her best guy friend. The wedding announcement with the meet-cute couple who became friends for a year before getting together. Are they all the exception or the rule? 

I have never been able to transition a friendship to a relationship. Not when I bonded with a guy at a retreat. Not when I worked on the college newspaper with a fellow music lover. And again, the list goes on. It’s a catch-22, really, because I’m more apt to fall for someone AFTER I get to know him. So here we are, joking around in a bar, talking about our lives - have I reached the point of no return? If he knows I’m afraid of pigeons, is all hope of a relationship permanently damaged? I guess all I can do is wait for my own, personal multiple choice question to answer itself.