Invisible
By BetsyG
I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to men, but there are actually a couple of guys I know who I would be interested in getting to know better.
The first guy is someone I met a couple of years ago. Despite the fact that on every physical point he is 180 degrees different from my ideal (my ideal being tall, skinny, and blond), I developed a crush on him. He’s dynamic, with a wonderful energy. But it was pointless, since he was married. Every time I saw him around town, I wished it were otherwise. Looks wise, he was far from a heartbreaker, but he appealed to me.
Then last fall, my son’s team was playing his in baseball. I saw his wife there and observed that she was with a man. Was it her brother perhaps? She put her arm around him. Not her brother. Either this very lovely woman and suburban mother was stroking another man in her husband’s presence or the object of my crush was now divorced.
A conversation with the ex-wife in the supermarket confirmed it. Unbelievable! If I could just turn on the charm, make a little eye contact, maybe I could at least get a date for a cup of coffee and find out if there was any appeal beyond the surface.
But the unthinkable has happened: he didn’t bite. He’s not even nibbling (and I do like to be nibbled).
I know what you are thinking: I should ask him out. It’s a bit of a quandary, though. On the one hand, I’m thinking he’s has had ample opportunity to notice I’m interested in him. His failure to respond I have to think means he doesn’t find me enthralling and/or attractive. (And enthralling and attractive are my best traits!) That’s hard to take, but it’s also hard to deny, given that I am a keen observer of human behavior.
The other possibility is that it hasn’t even occurred to him that I am interested in him. Maybe, then, I really should ask him out, to be sure he gets it. Tempting. But a couple of thoughts come to mind on that matter. One is that a guy who fails to notice an attractive, enthralling, and available woman may not be the best bet as a romantic prospect. But the hesitancy comes more from the concern that he has noticed and is doing his best to ignore it. I think that my chance for rejection is high and that rejection in this particular case would feel very, very bad.
So despite the kismet that came with my wishing this guy single, he’s a scratch. That’s disappointing, because all I wanted was a chance to see if I could carry on a conversation with him.
As for the other guy, that situation is even tougher, one reason being that I’m not even sure if he is available. He’s a friend of friends but not the type of friends I can ask about his romantic status. Beyond that, though, this guy is clearly desirable, and if he is available, there’s probably a line of women around the block hoping for a chance. He’s blatantly smart and exceptionally cool—almost certainly a lot smarter than I am and, I hate to even think it, probably cooler too.
Simply put, he may be out of my league, which is not something I say very often. Or ever. He’s so obviously of interest to the female sex that I would feel lame getting in line for a ticket to that show—one that’s almost certainly sold out. I can’t even say I’m really crushing on this guy; I just find him interesting enough that I would like to talk to him to see what’s there.
With him, it’s a bit like asking out the most popular boy in the class. In a sense, it’s a low-risk proposition, because the most popular boy in the class isn’t apt to think about you once you’re out of his sight. But I think it’s also a low-yield one, and I’ve too much pride to take that kind of rejection.
In such situations, a good question to ask to help yourself make a decision is, “What have I got to lose?” In both of these cases, the answer is “face,” and I’m too vain to part with that.
