At the Bath And Body Shop... and an all-too Typical Date for NiceGuy.

Warning: this one is pointless.

About two weeks ago, I went to a local mall with my female friend, Miriam and her fiancée, Dan.

Dan's generally a Nice Guy. But he's not terribly bright and I know he's not always honest and he's also got a low-paying job. Frankly, I think Miriam could've done far better. Like with me, for instance. But, she doesn't like me in 'that way'. (Oh, just for the record, I was madly in love with Miriam for at least 7 years. Seven years of unrequited love. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. But now, my love for her has thoroughly died. I only think of her as 'just friends' now. I hope she's happy knowing that she's destroyed someone's love for her.)

Miriam is an exquisite beauty. On a bad hair day and with no make-up, she's at least a 9. She's one of the few women I've met in my life who doesn't need to wear makeup. She's also not stuck-up and not (very) bitchy, which is totally astonishing. (No wonder my Ex, Lying Whorebag, didn't get along with her!)

Miriam is in the mall's Bath and Body shoppe. I'm with her and Dan, we're sniffing a few of the sample bottles.

A salesgirl walks-up. She's of East Indian extraction, lithe, petite and very pretty. About a 7, I estimate.

"Can I help you?" Her voice was sweet and feminine.

"Nope, I'm just looking." I sniffed another bottle. "Gack!"

"That one's pretty strong out of the bottle. Try spraying it on a card." She said. So, I did.

The salesgirl turns around and walks-back into the store. Dan nudges me.

"So, go talk to her."

"No." I put the bottle down and pick-up a card.

"Why not? Go ask her for her number."

I blink. I don't want to hit on someone who's working. I sigh. This is never good for anyone.

"Why should I ask her out?"

"Because, she's pretty and she was talking to you!"

"She's a salesgirl. She's supposed to talk to me if I'm a potential customer. That's how she earns her commissions." Yeesh.

"How will you know if you don't try?" He asks. I look at him wryly.

"I'm not her type."

"Be confident!" He is adamant.

"It's not a matter of confidence, it's a matter of realism. I'm not her type. I'm not any woman's type."

"Just give it a shot. Okay?"

I shrug. Well, could it hurt? I glance over at her. She walks-over.

"So, are you finding everything okay?"

"I suppose. Tell me, when you work here, how long does it take before you can't smell anything at all?"

"Oh, I can smell things just fine."

Dan, by now, has casually walked-away.

"I figure that with all these pungent scents wafting around, it might dull your sense of smell?" I asked.

"We have coffee beans. Wanna see?" Coffee?

"Sure, I guess." She brings me to the check-out counter and she shows me a small jar of coffee beans. I take a whiff. It shocks my senses back to an even keel.

"Oh... that works."

"Yup. So, are you interested in anything?" I scan the shelves. It is rife with feminine stuff. Plenty of pink, yellow- pastel everything. All sorts of girlie things. Candles. Potpourri. Bath beads in a ribboned-wicker basket on lace doilies. Sickeningly-sweet flower-shaped soaps. Frosted-white bottles of God-knows-what. I mean, as males go, I'm not often described as very manly... but even so, this place is starting to make even me ill.

"Got any guy products?" I ask. Any smelly, dirty, rough-and-tumble, Y-chromosome, ugly-ugly hunk o' man stuff? I feel the need to compensate for even being in here.

She takes me over to a set of shelves.

"Here's where we have the guy stuff." She says.

"Guy's stuff? Let me guess... " I indicated a shelf and gestured my hand downwards. "Everything below this point." I moved my hand down one shelf and gestured upwards. "And above this point." I put an index finger on the one remaining shelf. "Guy's stuff is everything between here." And I put a second finger about eight inches away from my first finger. "And here." I indicated a pair of jars between my fingers. "Everything except for these two jars..." I pickup the one, remaining bottle. "This. So, this, basically is the guys' product. This one bottle. Am I Right?" (Well, Steve Martin would've probably found that one funny. It was a mostly visual joke that doesn't carry-over into HTML well.)

She laughed and shook her head. "Well, no. There's about 4 shelves there."

"So... six square feet of shelf-space?" Hmm, that would be about 2% of the shelf-space in here.

"Right."

"Hmm... well, I'll have a look." I scan the items.

She walks-off to help another customer. Yeesh, maybe more guys would shop here if there was more variety and if the store wasn't so blatantly... femmy?

This place is totally paneled with mirrors. I'm sure this says something about the vanity of women, but that goes without saying.

I look at the shelf. There's a modicum of variety. Shaving gel, shower-gel, soap, cologne... but they all come in the same three scents. Three. That's it. There was a dark green scent, a light blue scent and a light green scent. I pickup a dark green bar of soap labeled"Mountain Spring Scent". There are some rounded knobs on the bottom side and it looks like there's a mountain carved into the top of soap... well, either it's a mountain or a silhouette of the state of Virginia.

The salesgirl comes back. I hold-up the soap.

"Is this a mountain, or the state of Virginia?"

"I think it's a mountain."

"You're probably right. Conceivably, Norfolk could be right here." I indicate a point on the 'coast' of the Virginia-shaped mountain. (Now that I look-back on what I said... I'm a bit too much of a dork for my own good sometimes.) "So what do you suggest?"

"This soap is also a shower massager." She takes it from my hand and rubs the knobby bottom-part of the wrapped soap on my back."See?"

"I see... hmm..." Odd. And quite useless. Ever try to give yourself a massage? It doesn't feel very good. Oh, I guess you need to have a woman in the shower with you for the massager to work. (Or a guy, if you swing that way. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

"Do you like cologne?" She asks.

No.

"Sure I do." I lied.

She starts showing me samples of the three scents of male cologne. I can't ask her out. She'll say no. They always say no. Don't women realize that they hurt peoples' feelings when they reject them? No, because they think guys don't have any feelings. Bah. I can't do this.

One of the scents, I like somewhat. I take the white card on which the tester was sprayed and hold it up.

"I'm gonna go find my friends, ask them what they think. K?" She nodded, and I walk-away.

I find Dan and Miriam in The Gap, across the way.

"What do you think of this scent?" I ask Dan. I wave the card under his nose.

"It's fine. Did you ask her out?"

"No... I mean, how am I supposed to launch into that sort of thing? I'm sure guys probably bug her all the time." I sigh.

"You'll never know if you don't try." He looked at me as if to say 'what are ya? Chicken?? Buck-buck-buck-kaw!!'

"Well... I'll give it a shot." She's only 5 feet tall. She can't do much damage to me.

I go-back and pick-out some shower gel. I walk-up to the register and motion to buy it.

As she's ringing it up, I ask "So, are you working until closing time?"

"No, I get-off at about five."

"Want to do something then?"

She smiled wistfully.

"I have a lot of homework."

"Oh, are you in college?" She nods. "Well, if you like, maybe I can help you with homework? You know, like, proofread your paper or something?"

"I'm learning American Sign Language. Do you know ASL?"

"Er. Not exac- nnnnno. Well, maybe I could call you sometime? Is that okay?"

"Well, I'll give you my number." She writes it on my receipt.

Her name is Puneet

So, I buy the shower gel. I buy a product that I don't really want for a phone number that might not be real. Am I pathetic? I mean, pathetic people don't know they're pathetic... which is one of the things that probably makes them pathetic.

I walk-over to The Gap and Dan.

"Did you get her phone number?" He asks.

"Yes... but that doesn't mean anything. She could be just trying to appease me so I'll go away. Or it could be a fake phone number. Or she could screen her calls and end-up never talking to me."

"Don't be such a pessimist!"

"Non. Je ne suis pas pessimiste. These are all things that women have actually done to me in the past. I'm just reiterating common trickery that women resort to. A lot of them are sadists, you know; it's the only explanation."

"Well, maybe you'll be lucky this time? Luck can change, NiceGuy. Now you have to find-out as much about her as possible. You have to stalk her!" (By the way, I don't condone stalking. It's a crime. Dan was being tongue-in-cheek.)

"Stalk her?" I chuckle. "Well, that I can do! You can learn a lot about someone by rooting-through their garbage." (By the way, I don't condone stalking. It's a crime. I was being tongue-in-cheek.)

Miriam walks-up with an armful of clothes she'd been trying-on.

"You got her phone number? Call her tomorrow. Don't call her today. It'll make you look desperate."

"Okay... tomorrow afternoon, then." Gee, I don't want to seem eager to talk to her, do I?

"Wait two days. And it could be a fake phone number." Miriam warned. "I mean, I've done that. Given guys fake phone numbers just so they'll go away."

"Gee, women are big liars, aren't they?" I grinned evilly. Miriam wrinkled her nose.

"Hey!"

"Yup... biiiiiig ol' liars. The whole lot of 'em. Except you, of course."

The Next Day.

Afternoon, the next day, I call Puneet's number. I decide not to wait two days if it is indeed a fake phone number. I get an automated recording. It's either a pager, a turned-off cell-phone or voice mail. I leave a short message.

"Hi Puneet, this is NiceGuy. We met yesterday briefly. Please give me a call when you have a chance. I can be reached at so and so number. Hope to hear from ya, bye."

I don't expect to be called-back. But about three hours later, I get her call.

I ask if she'd like to see a movie with me on the weekend? Sure she would. Cool beans.

The Date

I go to meet her at a local mall. I wait outside the theatre. I wait and I wait and I wait and I wait.... 30 minutes. Sheesh, am I being stood-up? It's a good thing the movies doesn't start for about 15 more minutes...

Finally, she walks-up.

"Sorry, I ran a little late." She also mentions that she has to pickup her younger sister at 10 PM that night so she can't stay-out with me too late.

I buy the tickets, we go-in to the theatre. It's a scary movie (I love a good scare) and we have some sweets afterwards. She seems sweet, bright, funny and generally nice. She's smart, and... well, just generally pleasant to be with. I'm actually quite impressed: she's not an overt bitch. She's a college student and also works 2 part-time jobs. Ooh, I find it very attractive when a woman is hard-working and career-oriented. She's 19 and lives at home with her parents. Based on her description, it seems that her parents have her on a pretty tight leash. She rationalizes this by saying that she's willing to follow her parent's rules as long as she's living at home for free.

I walk her back to her car. I say goodbye and... I suddenly thought her lips looked lonely.

Without thinking I say: "Before you go... gimme a hug?"

She lets me put my arms around her and I plant a quick kiss on her lips. She smiles, blushes and looks to the ground.

"Hold on a sec..." I said, smiling. "Wait, wait, hold on..." I kissed her a second time. She smiles wider. I step back.

"Was I too forward?"

"I... I didn't expect that... I mean, I usually don't kiss on the first date."

"Neither do I. Well, g'night. Call me?"

She nods.

I walk back to the mall and glance at my watch. It's still fairly early in the evening. Hmm, might as well go home and play video games.

A Few Days Later

I call Miriam, and tell her how the date went.

"Never kiss on the first date!!!" She sighs. "I mean, it's too soon!"

"I wanted to kiss her!" I shrugged. "It just... her lips looked lonely. Well, the damage is done. Should I not kiss her again?"

"No, just go ahead. If it wasn't okay with her the first time, she'd have told you..."

Yeah, I guess. Unless, of course, she was held-back her puking until after she was out of my sight.

After finished the phone call with Miriam, I call Puneet, leave a message asking for her to call me.

She does, we make a date for Wednesday night. Just after she gets-off work.

Wednesday Rolls-Around

I meet her at a Mongolian barbeque (yum!). We sit-down with our plates and start talking. We talk about religion, mainly. Her family's Hindu practices, and my parents' allegiance to the Protestant faith. I talk about various turning-points in the development of Christian history. She teaches me some sign language. It feels nice to have an intelligent conversation. She's a little chatterbox, in fact.

That restaurant was next-door to the mall where she works, so she walked-there from work. I drive her home.

I drive-up to the outside of her parent's house. She was about to get-out, but I tapped her hand.

"Hey, before I go... can I give you a good-night kiss?" I ask hopefully.

"No." She says flatly. She didn't even blink.

"Ouch."

"Sorry."

"Ouch!" I say and make a pained expression. I clutch my heart.

"Oh, come on. I didn't hurt you."

"What, I can't feel disappointment? Yeesh."

"Look, I just want us to be friends..."

The Kiss of Death. Game Over, dude. That's it. I sigh. Yikes, I was in a really romantic mood, and it all comes to a screeching halt.

"You know, I am so sick of hearing that. I have enough friends. I want you to know something: I don't kiss just anyone. A woman has to be really damn special in my eyes for me to do that. I like you. I mean, you're a nice, smart, attractive woman and I'm sick of dating bitchy women."

"Thank you, but, well, I broke-up with my boyfriend about two months ago, and I think it might be too soon for me to start anything..."

And of course, she let me pay for dinner. I shake my head in frustration. Oh, please! If I was a publicly-known millionaire, I'm sure she'd find a way to get-over her ex in a real hurry. If I hear the 'I just want to be friends' line once more, I swear I'll go on a shooting-spree in the nearest Home Depot.

"Very well. I understand. Have a good evening."

"It's nothing personal... I just don't want to get into a new relationship."

"I understand. Good night." She gets-out of her car and shuts the door.

I head for home, blasting the CD-player. This sort of thing has happened to me a hundred times. I am so damn sick of the 'just be friends' line. Did she really have this boyfriend, or is he just a lie? Why couldn't she have mentioned this earlier? No way am I going to call her again. If she really wants to be friends, she can call me.

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"Male: ... represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. 'The first males were mutants... the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female." -- A Feminist Dictionary, ed. Kramarae and Treichler.

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