Dem Gurlz

So I removed a post because I had a stronger post on the same theme I wanted to put up while it is still relevant, but I haven't actually written that new post yet... le sigh.

Rather than let this blog lie fallow and unsown while I gird my fingers for battle with the keyboard I thought I'd instead take a little time to, well, gloat I guess.

I've commented before that I'm something of a recluse, which is fundamentally true. There are stretches of several days where I don't leave my house except for my daily coffee run and walking the dog, neither of which really count.

That's not to say I can't be sociable and charming when the situation demands, merely that I naturally avoid such situations, to my detriment.

This last month I've been taking some classes at the local community college, one of which is Creative Writing. Not because I need it, per se, but because for me English Classes have always been easy credits, easy 'A's.  Frankly, I'm bored to tears with the teacher and the class for the most part, and subsequently I have taken to turning the classroom into my own personal domain, effectively teaching half the class.  I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not, really.

That is neither here nor there, however, other than establishing 'scene'.

Its a small class, roughly a dozen people or so.  Of the women in the class we have three categories: The bored housewife who's kids have grown so they're back to school, the young and pretty college co-eds and the proto-feminists. Luckily, there is only one of the last, unluckily she seems to have a familiar history with the teacher and never gets called on her obscene fiction. Obscene in that every man is a kidnapping rapist/murderer, and every woman is a ball breaking karate expert who will teach him what for!   You know? One good story like that is enough. Every story like that is actually somewhat demeaning to men.

This is relevant.

Last week I put up a post where I said I'd force myself to make a minimum number of approaches a week to women. Not going to happen, much like the other goals I set, for reasons not entirely in my control, but...

The next day I made a snarky joke in response to something the teacher said. It was very mildly racy. As I left class I noticed one of the three co-ed girls give me a flash of interest. I wish I could remember exactly what she did, but I noticed it.  I decided I would force myself to approach her on Monday, even though I wasn't terribly interested in her.

For those of you paying attention, Monday was a Holiday. Oops.  She wasn't there yesterday either.

Curiously, however, after I called out the proto-feminist on her rather obsessive man-beating, I noticed another of the co-ed girls was actively engaging me. Rather than leap on that I merely noted it in the back of my head for later. When class broke, one of the 'old women' in class walked with me towards my math class, talking to me about some throw away story intro I had put forth.

Now: in the honest appraisal of things I am, at best, modestly handsome.  I am not stylish or fashionable, but I am tall. I am not terribly fit, but neither am I a frail waif or a fat slob.  I look rather what I am: an average man of somewhat modest age and accomplishments.  My most distinguishing feature is not actually indicative of anything about me, but merely an accident of genetics.

There is a taller, younger, fitter man in the class. There is a burlier man in the class. There are young and stylish (in the new, somewhat insouciant fashion) men in the class.

Yet, for whatever it is worth, I've got a third the girls actively looking at me like I'm god's gift to creative writing, and even the proto-feminist hasn't really challenged me when I called her out... though to be honest she hasn't set forth to break anyone's balls personally... no doubt she'd rather blog about it (burn? Yes, I burned myself. Ouch).

So on Friday I will have to decide between conventionally pretty but obviously a future fatty co-ed, if she returns, or the skinny freckly co-ed, make my approach and watch my ego burn and die. It could be fun.

For the curious: Third co-ed is more to my taste, and convention, in that she makes an effort to be pretty, to dress up.  I've gotten nothing from her, and I've seen her with what I assume is her boyfriend, so I won't waste my time.   Luckily for me, I seem to have aged out of the oneitis and infatuation stages, so the fact that I fancy her isn't distracting me from the girls who have expressed interest.

Every once in a while I wonder what might have happened if I'd taken advantage of that girl that was crushing on me when I was 13, instead of rebuffing her. I bet she went from gawky and awkward to hot in the next five years.  Ah well.