shotgun dating

There’s a very handsome man who lives on my block. He’s always trying to start a conversation, flirting with me when ever I pass by, three or four times in the last two weeks. Today’s my birthday. I thought I’d flirt back.

I knew within a few sentences that Sam had no idea he’d ever seen me before.This man lives on my block, has hit on me every single time he’d gotten within three feet of me, but apparently had never actually seen…me. He’d seen a woman walking down the street and a switch got flipped in his head. Flirting was just his knee jerk reaction to the category “woman”, and if I went for it, great. If not, there’d be another woman walking down the street any minute. I never registered past the moment.

It’s like hunting with a shotgun. You point in the general direction of Female and pull the trigger, hoping to hit someone, anyone. It’s not very flattering to be in that flock of wild ducks, to be reduced to a nothing more than gender. It’s not the sway of my hips, the wildness of my hair, or the sparkle in my eyes that got his attention.

My friend Dana says when boys yell out “Hey, I like your tattoo” to girls, what they really mean is “Hey, I like that you have a vagina. Wanna bring it over here?”

Last week a man in Costco sidled up to me, commented on my tattoo, looked me dead in the eye and said “Do you come here often?”.

I don’t know much about dating, I know less about relationships, but I know crazy talk when I hear it. And these days I don’t feel the need to give crazy a set of house keys.

Walter, on the other hand, lives in my building and never flirts. He tries to chat me up, to be my friend, to get to know me. He’s interested in more than just my gender, he wants to know what makes me laugh and smile. There’s a big language barrier and a larger accent barrier. I don’t understand most of what he says. But Walter sees me, he sees my jodiness. He recognizes me from a block away, obviously he appreciates the particular sway of my hips. He’s been coming at me with his butterfly net for two years.

I’m neither a wild duck nor a butterfly. Neither a shotgun, nor a net will do.

I’m a shelter dog at heart, a feral cat.

Someone will know what to do with that.