The Window

After receiving the news that JP does not have his own 28 day rule and had imported an "old friend" from Brussels to meet him in Vienna last week I was feeling pretty down. And what does any girl do when she's down? Well, she calls some guy she knows is interested in her but that she honestly has no intention of ever really being with to accept a longstanding dinner invitation thereby giving the illusion that she's over the ex.

JP called with the news Thursday night. I'm more likely to figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop than to ever figure out why he would call and tell me something like that so we'll leave it at that. Fortunately for me, I had to be in Pasadena all day on Friday for work and decided to take H up on an old dinner invite. I called H mid-morning and found out he was free that evening. Perfect.

We met in Old Town Pasadena for a pre-dinner beer at De Lacey's - a great older restaurant and bar if you're ever in the area. H managed to suck down two screwdrivers as I nursed a pint and wondered what I was doing out with the guy when I could be sitting in traffic on the 101. Still, we were there and might as well make the best of it, right?

H insisted on giving me the tour of the bars of Pasadena. Two pints later I was feeling a bit of a buzz and H was getting more interesting - although not that interesting.

Then it happened, somewhere between a Newcastle and a Red Tail Ale, there was a moment where the tide could have turned in H's favor. Something came over me - a feeling of just wanting him to shut up and of wanting to be kissed by anyone. It's just the sort of combination that leads to a rare window of opportunity for an otherwise unlikely candidate. I gave H my best shut up and kiss me look and waited.

Let me interject here and say that every guy who goes out alone with a girl has such a window of opportunity where if he could just see what was going on in her mind, or sense that she wanted him to shut up and take action, he would have a shot. Unfortunately, 99.9% of the time men miss the moment, the window shuts and the man is left peering in. Then the poor guy ends up relegated to "friend" status and usually never even knew the window had opened and shut. And once the window shuts, it is unlikely to open again. Yeah, we're fickle like that.

For H on Friday night in some bar in Pasadena, the window opened briefly. Fortunately for me, H was on about his 7th screwdriver and wouldn't have recognized a window in a glass building. And so the moment passed and I came to the sobering realization that I had basically opened a window for a guy I would not normally open it for. With that I ordered a glass of water, found my way to my car, and headed home feeling as if I had narrowly escaped a potentially bad situation. In reality, H is a nice guy who never knew what had transpired and probably never will.

In this tale there is a message for the men out there teetering on the verge of friendship and something more: If you get the object of your desire to go out with you and she's had a drink or two and is staring intently at you as you tell her all about your first car and the time you and your buddies drove it to Vegas, recognize the look, shut your mouth, and climb in the window. Note: more than two minutes of silence by a woman is always a clear indicator of a window.

And remember, it's much tougher to get out than it is to get in.