The Return of Tuesday's Bad Dates

Ok, today isn't Tuesday. And I'm not actually writing about a date. But I was really really tired and brain dead yesterday. And in my mind, (and blog) I'm totally categorizing this in the Tuesday's Bad Date file. 'Cause that's the way I roll!

On Jan 3rd, I boarded a plane for a 6 hour cross country journey home. Looking like I always do on a mid-winter cross country plane ride: hair in a ponytail through the back of a Red Sox cap, wearing one of those velour track suits that were popular with soccer moms about 7 years ago that I snatched up on sale after they went out of style and now referred to as my "flying attire", glasses (since I'm not wearing contacts in that dry environment), and every exposed inch of skin slathered in lotion. Makes me look rather shiny. I always pray its not windy and dusty on the way to the airport or it'll stick to me and I'll spend the entire plane ride looking like Pig Pen. In other words, I'm even HOTTER and SEXIER than my usual makeup-less, jeans and chuck-taylors self!

So I got all settled in my seat and busted out my book and my ipod. And I noticed that the guy in the row in front of me kept looking back across the aisle at me. Yeah, yeah. I know I look like somebody who lives in a house with TV dinner trays piled to the ceiling and 57 cats. I get it. You can stop staring at me.

Then I realized that he was looking at me a lot more than the usual "Wow, what a sad creature that is" glance or two. Hmm. Maybe I knew him.

The next time he looked back, I looked -- really looked -- at him. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. Looked like he could be Indian. Or Lebanese. Come to think of it, he looked Iranian. Kind of cute, too. Early to mid 30's. Very computer nerd or scientist looking; black jeans, black T-shirt, Banana Republic-y suede jacket, looks like he hits the gym 3-4 times a week with a routine ripped out of Men's Fitness magazine.

You know, until this plane trip, I never realized how interchangeable Boston and the Silicon Valley are! You could take the entire clientele from Red Bones in Somerville and just exchange them for the clientele from Nola's in Palo Alto. Nobody would even notice. Unfortunately, I soon figured out that I did not know this plane guy from either of those establishments. He was, in fact, a plane stranger.

Alright, if he doesn't know me, why the heck does he keep looking back at me? What is his problem? Oh. Hey. Maybe he thinks I'm cute. And, you know, from the looks of his geeky appearance, he may think that I'm on the cutting edge of fashion in my plane attire!

The next time he looked back and made eye contact, I smiled a little. No response. That's ok, though. Everyone knows that nerds and geeks tend to be a bit socially awkward and sometimes take a few reps. Maybe this plane ride would be a turning point in my life. Maybe years from now we'd be telling stories about how we met on a plane when he kept turning back to look at me and I finally smiled at him. Except that after I smiled a few more times, I still got no response. In fact, he started kind of looking not at me, but at my carry-on under the seat. At me, then my ipod, then my carry-on. And now at me again. Ok, what is going on here?

Maybe he's planning to kill me! Maybe he's been looking back to see if he can find out information about me to follow me home and attack me. Or maybe he won't even wait that long! Maybe he's going to take that electronic device in his hand and blow us all up right now. Oh, wait. He's just playing a video game. My bad.

What the hell is wrong with me? Some guy looks at me a few times and I go from "He thinks I'm a freak" to "He wants to date me" to "He wants to kill me" in a matter of 45 minutes? Is this why I'm still single? Seriously, I think I'm going to have to sit down and do some hard-core self reflection and...wait. Is he playing some kind of single player Everquest game on his cell phone?

Never mind. Even if he was interested, it wouldn't have worked anyway. I'm going back to my book.