I’m walking this morning from Union Station to generic office building a few blocks away. It’s shortly after 9 a.m. An interesting looking woman in clippity cloppity heels briskly passes me. She’s not what I’d consider attractive, but I guess I am wrong.
A mid-30s looking man with broad shoulders, close-cut hair, shirt, tie, no jacket–very DC looking–catches up to me and sees the woman just slightly ahead of us. I watch him give her a look that I can only imagine a stereotypical DC guy would give to mean: That is good! I want that!
“I think it may rain today,” he says to the woman, who is wearing khaki-colored dress pants with a sleeveless green sweater top. She responds with a half-hearted remark that leads to friendly conversation about weather.
It feels cool, he says, but not cold. It will soon be cold. She keeps engaging him.
I quicken my pace to keep up because I can just sense where this is going.
At the traffic-light controlled intersection, we all pause. She begins to make a move suggesting she is turning the corner.
“Hi, I’m <insert name> here. What is your name name?”
She gives her name–it sounds like Connecticut. I really hope I heard that wrong.
As I look between the intersection, waiting for the walk sign, and look toward their way, I see him place his hand in his pants pocket, and like a magician with a white rabbit, a white business card amazingly appears.
She accepts it, has no card to give him back. But they talk more until the light says to walk. She goes her way, he crosses the street with me.
All the while, he keeps turning around, glancing back at the space where she used to be. We enter the same building, and I slow my pace. I’m not interested in riding the elevator with him.
Elevator sharing can be awkward enough sometimes. I’d imagine it’s even more awkward (for me at least) when you’ve just witnessed a DC guy at his game.
Now I wonder. Will she call him? Email him? Ignore him? How many more business cards will he conveniently pull from his pants pocket today and hand out to other women? Is he married? Will he post a missed connection on Craigslist? What would this scene be like if acted out by an improv troupe (because I’m obsessed and all that.) Will I see them again, maybe in six months, holding hands as they walk together from the Metro to their generic office buildings?
Why did I find her oddly unattractive while this man jumped to the opportunity to talk to her?
And all this time, I’ve been looking to structured social activities as a way to meet more people. For the right people, in the right places, it may be just as simple as walking down the street. And always having your pristine, unwrinkled business card in your pocket.
