A funny occurrence that ends in the worst lie I've ever told

Today i was scheduled to work at the Orem Arts Council tent at Orem Summerfest. I arrive, I get set up, the other people who i'm replacing at the table leave, and I get to working hard, manning the table. (It was grueling.) I've been at the table maybe five minutes when this guy and his friend kind sidle up to the table. I can already tell by the one guy's whole attitude that he means business--but not with the Arts Council. With me. I prepare myself for the inevitable awkwardness--but one not without its humor. So here goes: R (we'll call him R and I'll explain why later) comes up to the table.

"Hey!" he says as if I'm supposed to recognize him. Hi. What can I do for you? (Now I can't remember if he launched right into his pick-up lines of if he even attempted to feign interest in the Arts Council. But anyway...he goes on.) "Are you in college?" What?! I'm thinking. What kind of question is that? Oh! I get it. You want to make sure you aren't picking up on a high schooler. Admirable, but a little transparent, don't think, pal? I take about two seconds to decide what tone to adopt with this guy. He seems harmless enough, but potentially annoying. I decide on the "civil, but mono-syllabic" tone.

No, I reply simply. Not anymore.
"That's too bad," he says. He clearly thinks I've dropped out or something. I should have just left it at that, but at this point my sense of mischief is in full gear. I want to see if I can get this guy to actually come out with it and ask me if I'm dating anybody.
I graduated, I say. His ears perk up.
"When?" He asks, obviously still trying to determine my age (which, I know, is difficult for people who don't know me.)
April.
"Where from?"
BYU.
"Oh! I was going to school up there, too! That's probably where I've seen you around."
I scowl. Seriously? Low marks for creativity, pal. I shake my head. He senses that this tack isn't working, so he adopts a different one: He is suddenly all professional, detached interest in all the pamphlets at the booth. I know he doesn't care about any of this stuff, but I explain in as much detail as I can about ALL of it. I glance at his friend who, unlike himself, seems a little bit of a shady character who's missing a few teeth. Weird. He doesn't even feign interest in the stuff on the table, but patiently waits for his friend to wrap things up with me.

Meanwhile, R has taken one of the volunteer forms--and a free pencil--on the pretext of filling it out. "Oops," he says. "I was writing on the back." He flips it over, but before he does I can see that he has written one letter: R. Probably the first letter of his name, if I had a guess.
Wow. Does he really think I don't know that he's writing his name and number on the front of the form? Does he think he's going to take me pleasantly by surprise when he hands it to me with all of his contact info filled out and a big "Call me!" on the top? (He didn't, but I'll get to that in a minute.) Just at that moment, the gods intervene and the biggest wind/rain/lightning storm on planet Earth at that particular moment descends upon Orem, Utah. I simply cannot spare him another thought as we scramble to get everything under the tent. When we have finally done all we could do (which was not much in the face of such furious rain) I stand up to find this guy still hanging over my shoulder. Really? I think. Are you still here? The sky is falling--the tent, at least, is--all hell is breaking loose and you are taking this inauspicious moment to pay your addresses to me?! I'm thinking all of this inside.
"Listen," he says, making a clean breast of it. He's clasping the volunteer form anxiously in his hand. "Are you dating anyone?" he ask quietly and seriously.

Here's where I lie. I briefly contemplate telling him I'm married. But then, I'm wearing no ring, and my sense of fair play tells me I shouldn't go that far. (I think he would have ring-checked.) So, I just smile apologetically, and nod my head. I see him grip the piece of paper and it crumples a little. "Oh, okay, then. Er...do you remember the website for the Arts Council?" he asks. "Oh wait. It's here on the pencil, I guess." I nod again, still apologetic. Poor guy. He's desperately trying to backpeddle out of a blunder he could have easily avoided if a) he hadn't so clumsily picked up on a girl he knew nothing about, and b) if I--and I admit fault--hadn't tightened the noose by fibbing. Well, the tempest is in full swing by then, so R and his buddy take off at lightning speed (no pun intended) to some other tent to wait it out.

Phew. Perhaps I shouldn't have lied. Undoubtedly, I should not have. But I could think of no better, faster and surer expedient to get this guy away from me. He was clearly the persistent type. Let me clarify that I did nothing to lead him on. i didn't even smile at him--other than apologetically, that is. But this whole thing is the kind of thing that never happens to me, so I wanted to see where it would go. So, ok. it probably wasn't the worst lie I've ever told.

But oh! Would that it had not been a lie after all! For more reasons than one.

Uncleverness

Today I went to go deliver something to a friend whose apartment complex I'd never been to. When I got there, I could see that the complex was, if not giant, at least kind of big and sprawly. I wondered whether I should just pick a stairwell and check every third floor until I found apartment 303 or...huzzah! I could ask this nice young man who clearly lived there if he could kindly direct me to the right place. "Excuse me," I say. "Could you tell me where 303 is? Is it in this stairwell?" He looks at me with that smirk I so despise (the smirk that says, "I have something so clever to say that only I will think it's funny") and says, "Well, I guess it's on the third floor." I feel my contempt rising. I force a smile (more like a sneer) and explain to him, in nicer terms than this, that I was not born yesterday. (I actually said something, "Yeah, I got the third floor part.") But I think he read my tone, which is never hard to do, and promptly cut the crap and told me where to go.

Such a bore! And I do not tolerate bores.

Today in the lunch line...

Today at work, I was feeling cranky for no reason. Usually when this happens it means I'm hungry. When I took stock of the situation today, I realized that this was the case. So I go to the Cougareat. (Hateful place. But I hadn't gone grocery shopping in weeks.) I'm about to get into the Taco Bell line when a huge group of people right in from of me makes the split decision to do the same. I move on. Italian looks fine. I get in line, and the guy at the end of line gives me a weird look. I probably give him a weird look back. A few moments later he explains: He had gotten in line while it was really long, and for ten minutes or so no one had gotten in line after him. He thought he was the last person on campus who wanted Italian until I came along. Ah. I nod understandingly. He then proceeds to flirt vigorously. My responses are monosyllabic (i'm cranky after all), but I can see that he is not totally disingenuous. And he is kind of cute, I finally notice. He is too busy flirting to notice that all of a sudden it is his turn to order (oops) so he lets me go ahead. Chivalrous. I'm still cranky, but not as. And i'm about to eat a calzone. how bad can life be.

As I walk away with my tray, I secretly hope this isn't the end of our brief association and that we will magically sit at the same table or something or, or... But it is, and we don't. And I eat alone. And it is probably for the best since I was cranky anyway.

If my life were a movie, we'd run into each other again randomly. I'd drop my books, and--and there he'd be to help me pick them up! Alas, i don't carry books in my hand. And my life is not a movie.

(Damn.)

Male Idiocy in Provo

I know I have been delinquent in my blogging, but I have not felt moved to write about anything until now. It seems that a diatribal spirit has entered my body and proven to be the only emotion strong enough to incite me to write. EXPLODE, rather.

I have been back from my mission for six months now. Let's see, I can count on one invisible hand how many dates I have been on during that time period. Do you catch my drift? I concede that for four of those months, I was living at home and going to the old, fuddy duddy ward. But I have since moved out--at no small expense to me in this time of economic distress--and I have bent over backwards through flaming hoops to make myself social; I have performed feats of emotional perseverance trying to be nice to people that don't initially interest me, giving them the benefit of the doubt--because, really, I DO tend to misjudge people; I got to FHE; I do demeaning things--like scavenger hunts--in the name of making my presence known; I try to just be a nice person! But has it availed me anything in the romantic scheme of things? Have I seen one proverbial red cent for all my pains? Ha! In fact, during the course of my socializing, I the one thing I HAVE come to discover is that maybe my impressions of people arent that wrong after all. Most of them are phlegmatic or close-minded or ignorantly republican (I don't have anything against republicans, just ignorance) or what have you. I find myself slipping into my old aloof cynicism about dating.

The short and tall of it is this: I am tired of feeling like I'm not good enough. I don't need to be defined by success on the social scene. What a stupid measure of success anyway. I don't care anymore.

yes, I am angry while i'm writing this. don't take it too seriously. But basically this has been what I've been feeling for the past month. Are young single adult men REALLY as obtuse in other parts of the country as they are here?