The Jig Is Up: Part Deux

A while ago I was kindly reminded that I have neglected to include one of my most infamous experiences as an incompetent person. And since I have no online-shame, I'll share this experience with you as long as you understand one thing; I've learned my lesson. That said, allow me to set the scene.

The year was 2004, a crazy year for me at BYU. I had been keeping myself busy with school, work, tutoring at a nearby high school, and trying to start prank-wars with my nocturnal roommates. Things had been going well, and my roomie Nicole and I had decided to go out to dinner. We sat down, and were pleased to see that the restaurant was not very crowded and that we could talk undisturbed about what was going on in our lives, and how we were coping with living in Provo. Dinner came and we talked some more, and throughout the meal I began to notice a buss boy clearing the tables near us. For some reason he seemed very familiar, and I was sure that I had seen him somewhere before. At the time I was working a job on campus which required me to help many students in person. As a result I was constantly making claims that I had seen someone before, and that I somehow I knew them. Nicole was no stranger to this, so when I mentioned that I recognized the buss boy she rolled her eyes as if to say "here we go again!" And indeed we did.

After we had finished our meal, and after much debating, Nicole convinced me (in that special way that only Nicole can) that I should leave a note with my number for the cute buss boy. "What the heck!" I thought, "what's the worst that could happen?" Silly Janay. So quickly I scribbled a note on my receipt hoping that our waitress would take pity on me and hand it over to the desired recipient. Note: I want to point out that it was not even an option that I would actually TALK to this guy, because anyone who knows me know that I don't talk to guys, particularly if I'm interested. I'd much rather ignore them to make sure that they don't know of my interest . . . and it usually works. I can honestly say that most guys I'm interested in have no idea that I even exist, so . . . success!

On the way home Nicole and I were laughing about my "daring" move, and began to wonder why we didn't do things like this more often? I mean, we are in Mormon town here, most of the guys we're going to meet are going to fulfill at least our BASIC qualifications.

A couple days later I got a phone call. He told me his name and that he was from the restaurant; I had no idea what he was talking about, but I played along like I knew exactly who he was and eventually my inherent intuition kicked in.

The conversation was going well, albeit very awkwardly, when he asked me "so how old are you?" that's when I knew something was wrong. I was feeling very young at the time so I told him that I would be 21 in a few weeks, and as soon as I said that I realized my mistake. My suspicion's were confirmed when he told me that he also had a birthday coming up . . . he's 17th birthday. Worse than knowing that I had just hit on a minor was when I realized where I knew him from.

He was a student I tutored at the high school for troubled teens.

For once I realized that my inability to approach people of the male persuasion had saved me from potentially an even MORE embarrassing situation.

The conversation ended with asking me to call him back sometime (though preferably before 9pm if possible). After I hung up, I looked over at a curious Nicole and said "THIS is why we don't approach guys Nicole, because of things like this."

Needless to say I never tutored at that school again.