“Can I just tell you I’ve been looking at you all night and I think you’re fascinating?” (Umm, yes, I suppose you can). “I didn’t want to come over there for fear that one of those guys you’re with is your boyfriend, but now that I’ve caught you alone I couldn’t help but tell you…you are just…so…fascinating! (pause)…is one of them your boyfriend?” I shook my head.
Wow. Good start, I thought. I was convinced the days of the some enchanted evening tune were long gone…I was sure it only happened in Cary Grant and Bogey movies that a man crossed a room to tell a lady he had been watching her all night. And suddenly I was in one. And my Cary wasn’t too shabby either. I couldn’t help but hum the melody in my head…some enchanted evening…you may see a stranger…across a crowded room…and somehow you know…
All was romance and bliss and butterflies for an eternity of two and half seconds, and then he dropped the bomb question, “Where are you from?” and the needle slipped off my la-la-vinyl. Zzzzzzzzip!
Where are you from?! What is this, a job interview? An application form? A university dorm meet-and-greet? Just imagine if the lyrics to Some Enchanted Evening went “you may see a stranger, across a crowded room, and somehow you know, you know even then, you’ll go over and ask her where she’s from!” Exactly.
I must have been silent for a moment as I listened to my previously chirping birds come crashing down, for he then attempted a guess. “Milan?” I shook my head. “You’re not from Milan?” he said, with a tone so shocked one would think I had just told him I ate poached babies for breakfast.
"No," I responded listlessly, thinking, if one more guy uses geography to chat me up, I’m going to start dressing in flags. Maybe a quilt of flags, where the size of the patch would correspond to how long I had lived in each country. Or, conversely, (and I’ve put some time into this decision)…the next guy who doesn’t use geography to chat me up is totally getting the goods. All the goods.
“Really? But you even say ‘no’ like an Italian!”
Huh. “Well that’s because I’ve had to say no to a lot of Italians.” Unfazed by this and laughing it off, he proceeded with his trivial pursuit.
“Paris?” Non cheri, and to save you from the trรจs transparent flattery you’re about to commit by naming another fashion capital…
“Serbia,” I interrupted.
“Wow, I never would have guessed!” he enthused. No kidding. “But you dress exactly like a girl from Milan, I mean, the glasses, the pearls, the blazer…those shoes!” What? A Serbian girl can’t have snakeskin Diors? We may not be in the EU honey, but Dior is one of them blissful lands that I can enter sans visa. (Not sans daddy though, wink).
The conversation proceeded down this dull and predictable course, until he came to the conclusion he had started with—that I was fascinating—and that he wanted my number.
Really? That’s it? You give me a where-are-you-from and a nice-shoes and that’s supposed to provide the basis for the coffee, lunch or dinner we might meet for tomorrow? Ok, you find me fascinating, fair enough, but what am I to find you? Geographically curious? Geographically misled? Give me something…anything! other than geography to remember you by, to want more of! Bravado? Humour? Irony? Shyness? Even shy-guy is better than geo-guy. Shy is an attribute, geography a discipline. Get it? Apples and oranges, my friend, apples and oranges.
When did it get so easy? Though the pearls, shoes and the rest may not suggest it—I’m very easy to please. I don’t need Nobu, I don’t need Dior, (well, not from you I don’t) and I don’t need long weekends at the Four Seasons in Bali. My philosophy is make me laugh, make me cum and you got me. Surprise me occasionally by warming my towels in the tumble drier while I’m in the shower, and you can keep me forever. But you got to start with something better than where are you from…or else, you know what? Turn around and go back to where you are from…and don’t worry pumpkin, I don’t need to know where that is.
