I've been thinking of this embarrassing situation I created the other day, and I can't get it out of my head. I think it'll be cathartic telling a bunch of random dudes how badly I screwed the pooch on this one, and maybe that'll make me stop thinking about it. But don't worry kids, this is a (long) cautionary tale with a lesson at the end.

I was out with a buddy of mine searching for some clothes for me for work, and I went into some store that I can't remember the name of looking for sport jackets. I found something I might like and I went into the dressing area, the kind with the mirrors out in the common area so you don't have to ask the girl for a plastic hangar for your dressing room door. I went over to the tri-fold mirror, and almost as soon as I got the jacket on, I heard the girl right next to me who I hadn't even noticed till now, tell me that she liked the look on me. The second I heard her tone and the way she stumbled over those words, I knew instantly she was hitting on me.

As I turned to her, I could see that she was young, probably under 21 - strike one. Since I wasn't really in the mood to be hit on again that day, there's strike two. With a reason I guess I'd make up later which I'd call the third strike, she was already out of the equation for me and I made my fatal mistake. I took myself out of that interaction and put myself back into what I was doing. That was pretty much where the thinking ended.

The rest of this I've pieced together from the little I remember and what my buddy told me he saw. This is the embarrassing part - what I thought she was asking my advice on some MALE clothes for one of her MALE coworkers was actually her asking advice on FEMALE clothes for HER. In my defense, it was dark back there and the shirt she was showing me was black, plus I wasn't paying much attention to her at this point anyway. I was thinking to myself how feminine the clothes this guy was going to buy were, and I was just trying to be honest when I told her they looked "kinda gay." I was done with trying on clothes at that store, and I started walking out. From what my friend tells me, I left the girl standing there looking ready to cry. I felt so bad that I almost went back and apologized.

The lesson, boys and girls? When you're in an interaction with a woman, pay the fuck attention. At least that was the painfully obvious lesson I learned. In fact, now that same friend and I are working on a phrase as sort of a verbal slap to the head for me when there's a girl hitting on me and I'm totally spacing out. No, this isn't the first embarrassing thing to happen to me due to my own stupidity, only the latest. Luckily, there seems to always be someone around I can ask to kick me in the ass for it.

Dude, you are learning...this is good...

Learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them...

Good idea about your wing man/woman to have some silent comm between you two to let the other one know what is going on.

Get over it...and if you see her again, bring the clothes back up..when you do this, she will like it that you remember it and you can still 'fix' what you have done....

Other than that...life is going to be your best teacher.

Best,

J-Dub

_________________
J-Dub in DC

Its better to be the predator than the prey.

You need to be a good player if your gonna be successful at the game.

This is brilliant. I don't usually go back for any girl like that because the next one is 30 seconds down the road, but you're absolutely right. As soon as I read that, I understood what you meant and realized exactly how I could salvage the situation.

I also want to thank you for something else, because your words gave me inspiration to start working on my "asking-out" anxiety (I don't really have "approach" anxiety). With your inspiration and my wife's encouraging words, I asked this girl at Nordstrom I've been flirting with out.

What you said helped because she did exactly what you just told me to do, and I realized that if I was going to get it handled, there's no time like the present. Afterwards, it came as no surprise that I've been building it up in my head to be much bigger than real life. So, again, thank you.