Eye flirting

On November 12, I wrote about an odd encounter that I had at Kaldi's coffee house. The barista and I had a little tet-a-tete via visual communication.

After I posted the story on my blog, my friend Josh informed me that I had just experienced the art of "eye flirting."

"Eye flirting?" I asked. "Is that really what its called?"

"I don't know," he said. "But that's what I'm calling it now. Eye contact is a good thing. He was looking at you; that means he's interested. If you're interested in him, you eye flirt back to let him know. Then it's up to him to step up and talk to you."

Last year I was at a party with a friend. She left the dance floor to get something to drink. twenty minutes later I found her standing by the wall talking to a guy. They appeared to be in intimate conversation, and she had a smile on her face.

"Good for her!" I thought.

After the party I asked her about the conversation.

"It was weird," she said.

"What do you mean? He seems like a nice guy."

"Well, the whole time he just kept eye contacting me."

"Eye contacting you?"


"Yea, you know, when a guy is like looking at you really hard and trying to like gaze into your eyes. It just makes things really awkward."

"Maybe it means he's interested in you."

"Well maybe I just wanted to have a normal conversation without being eye contacted."



A little over a month has past since my experience at Kaldi's and my conversation with Josh; since then, I have tested out the art of eye flirting a few times--the most recent of which happened tonight:

I was walking out of the candlelight service at church. A herd of people shuffled between me and my mom so I stopped. A guy, who appeared to be around my age, stopped right in front of me. I looked at him with no intention of making eye contact, but he was already looking at me, and...it happened, our eyes locked.

I got confused and glancedto the right, then looked back--his eyes were still there--I looked at the ceiling, then back again. I think we may have smiled at each other. Then I looked at the ground and walked away.

What the heck are you supposed to do in a situation like that?

A couple nights ago I was at the piano bar with my friend Michelle. We were standing up, laughing at people singing karaoke when a cute guy in a camouflage hat (yes, I felt like I was back in Tennessee for a moment) turned around and looked at me.

Eye contact.

I looked away. So did he. Then we both looked back and I smiled.

"Hi," I said.

"Hey," he replied. Then he walked over and stood beside me.

The rest of our conversation isn't worth recording. He didn't have much to say. My one successful attempt at eye flirting turned out to be worthy of the fail blog.

I could continue giving you snippets and stories of my eye flirting escapades, but I think that would eventually bore you. I have yet to nail down the proper technique of eye flirting. In all honesty, I think its just freakin' awkward.

If you ask me, I think all you guys should just suck it up and go talk to whatever girl you're interested in. And ladies, be nice to the men. Maybe then they wouldn't be so afraid to say hi. Be approachable, then you can bypass the kooky concept of eye flirting.

Its okay to complain sometimes

I saw a really depressing movie yesterday....The Soloist with Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Fox. For some reason I thought it would be a nice, uplifting film to watch while I wrapped presents and decorated a scrapbook page, but it ended up the other way around. The presents were the only thing that kept me sane as I watched Jamie Fox get sucked into the life of a homeless schizophrenic. It was terribly creepy

And What does this have to do with dating, you might ask? Absolutely nothing. Just like my life and just like my blog.

I might sound a little bitter, but I'm not. Okay, maybe I am. Its just that its hard to find a date when you don't go out, and you don't go out because you don't really have anyone to go out with. And I really don't like to whine so I'm gonna to try to prevent that from happening by writing about some other random aspect of my life. But maybe that's the problem...I don't whine enough when parts of my life aren't going the way I want them to.

At the moment, I can't seem to think of anything to write about that wouldn't involve me whining just a little bit so if whiny people get on your nerves, then stop reading. Today I went to a baby shower and it was actually a ot of fun. For some reason everyone was dressed in some shade of green or pink or purple so the pictures turned out nice.

After the baby shower I went to a surprise party for my friend Jamie. This week is Jamie's last week working for The Upper Crust--a job that she really hates. And Unlike me, Jamie doesn't mind whining about her job, but somehow her whining ends up being funny because a story about delivering soup at 2:00 in the morning always accompanies the self pity.

We played taboo at the party and my team lost. However, Jamie's team won so I guess that's how it should have been anyway.

So now that you are completely confused and bored out of your mind, I will stop writing and go do something more productive--like finish a short story or read a book. Its my day off. Actually its my week off so I really have no need to be complaining right now.

Moral of the story: when life sucks, don't just sit there and complain; go do something about it.

The End

You are way too critical

Okay...so I slacked a little bit on keeping up with this blog over Thanksgiving break. But I'm back and hopefully good things will follow.

I realize that I have been keeping this blog for over a month and have only gone on one date. That probably has something to do with the fact that I don't go out that often and when I do, I usually find something wrong with whatever guy I'm talking to. I'm picky, what's wrong with that?

On my way home from Columbia, I stopped in St. Louis to have lunch with a friend. He told me he'd been reading my blog so I asked him if he had any advice.

"Well," he said, "the only thing I thought when I read your post about your date was 'man, this girl is way to critical.'"

"I know," I said. "And I'm trying not to be so critical."

I have my reasons for being critical; most of them have nothing to do with the men that I meet, but have everything to do with me and my fears. However, over Thanksgiving break I realized that I am not the only female that has the bad habit of being too critical.

My cousin Erica is 24 and just started dating a guy named Wes. I hung out with Erica and Wes the night before Thanksgiving and the morning of before we ran our Turkey Day 8k. He seemed like a nice guy--a little on the quiet side at first, but so am I, so who cares. He was attractive--especially in Erica's roommate's running clothes (he decided to run last minute), and he had a small sense of humor. He has a good job and from what I could tell, he treats Erica really well (although there have been plenty of guys who have treated her well in the past, but obviously they're still not around).

After lunch on Thanksgiving, I was sitting by Erica on the couch listening to our family members banter about this and that and whatever else.

"Look at this text Wes just sent me," Erica said

Oh, by the way. i meant to tell you that you're hair looked nice

I gave Erica a quizzical stare.

"Why would he say that?"

"I don't know!" she said. "My hair was up in a ponytail the whole time."

"Weird."

"Well, maybe I did tell him that I got it colored or something, but it's not that big of a difference and I don't know why he would text me that."

"Yea, I guess he's just trying to compliment you but that's still a really random text message.

I got up and went to the kitchen to get something to drink. When I came back Aunt Denise was sitting in my seat beside Erica so I sat down next to my mom on the other couch.

"Oh! Hahahahaha!"

Aunt Denise was laughing. I glanced up to see her looking at Erica's phone with her hand over her mouth.

"Diane," she said to my mom, "did you see this text Wes sent Erica?"

"No," my mom said.

Aunt Denise read her the text.

"Isn't that weird?" she said. "Why would he send her a random text about her hair?"

"Uh oh Erica," said my mom, "be careful, he might be turning into one of those stalker boys again.

"He probably came into your room last night to look at it. I can imagine him now, stroking your head and saying 'its my precious (in the voice of Gollum).'"

Everyone laughed, and while my mom and aunt continued mocking Wes, something dawned on me: this poor guy was probably on the other end of this text message simply trying to be nice.

"Y'all, "I said, "we are so mean! Poor Wes probably thought it was a great idea to send her that text. He probably just wanted to pay her a compliment and here we are analyzing it and making fun of him."

Aunt Denise gave another little laugh burst and put her hand over her mouth.

"Ya know," she said. "You're probably right. Ha! He has no idea what we're doing."

Everyone laughed again and my mom continued her Gollumnesque impression.

Later, I thought about the text situation in relation to what my friend had told me at lunch. Girls really are too critical. It's like we look for things to be wrong with someone so we don't have to talk to them anymore. I wonder if guys are that critical. I can't imagine it, but I would hate it if the tables were turned and I was the one being made fun of all the time. Maybe it's time for us, as women, to stop being so particular and recognize that everyone man is going to have something wrong with him. Prince Charming does not exist, but some men out there are trying their best to be him. Maybe its time we give them a chance and recognize that we're no Cinderella either.