i'll tell you what it takes to get a cute guy

it takes finesse. and by that i mean that on top of looking good and all that you have to say things that show the guy you're interested and at the same time make him interested in you.
here's where my problem lies.
i can work with the whole "look cute" thing, but apparently when i open my mouth, it is a di.sas.ter. exhibit a: cinco de mayo.

my dear friend, whom i've previously referred to as beaker and will continue to do so here, and i went to a lively little mexican restaurant to celebrate cinco de mayo and also as a belated birthday dinner. it took forever to get a seat, and when we finally did we got a tiny table in the corner, with tortilla chip crumbs still fresh in the booth. anyone who knows me, knows that remnants of other people's food/body fluids totally grosses me out. but beaker brushed them out of the seat for me, and i was fine, prepared to peruse the menu since taco Tuesday had unfortunately been canceled.

then the waiter came.

what first struck us about him, if i may speak for both of us, was not that he was cute, though he was, but rather the fact that he looked like he was STRAIGHT out of Happy Days. he had on a tight t-shirt, jeans and hair like the Fonz...you know, business in the back, swirl in the front, with tons of pomade. at the time though, beaker said, "(something something) elvis" so that's the comparison that stuck in my head. mind you, this is pre-weight gain, pre-rhinestone one-piece elvis. we're talking early, network censored elvis. anyway, about halfway into my mango margarita, i started feeling ballsy, so i beckoned the waiter over with my best two-finger come hither. "anybody ever tell you you look like elvis?" i asked. omg! now that i read that, that is the worst pickup line ever! "no...," he replied, awestruck, like i'd just given him the keys to a thunderbird. "who do people tell you you look like?" asked beaker. "tom cruise and ______" (i can't remember who the second person was. i keep wanting to say john malkovich, but that makes absolutely no sense). beaker and i nodded. we could definitely see tom cruise. "are you young?" was the next thing out of my mouth. "i'm 24," he boasted. "yeah, that's young." "why is that young?" he wanted to know. "well, we're a little bit older than that," said beaker. "and most 24 year olds aren't that mature. though i'm sure that doesn't apply to you," i added. "no, it does," he admitted. he went to check on more tables, but not before we learned that he was from oregon and yes, an actor. i should have ended the conversation then, but the margarita was good, and he and his terry cloth arm band were getting cuter by the second, and the wheels were already off my mouth train so there was no stopping. plus, he kept coming back to the table.

"so why's 24 young?" he asked again. "well, it's not young for her," beaker said. "she dates young guys. i'm into 40 year olds." "why are you so tan?" i asked. "i fell asleep at the beach in malibu and woke up three hours later all red." "yeah, that'll do it," said beaker. "are you peeling?" i wanted to know. see, i thought this was a valid question b/c in my head, i'm already thinking that if you take your shirt off around me, i don't want your skin to be flaking off. i learned later from beaker that that was not a question that screamed "hey, i like you and want to go out." he said he wasn't peeling. he left again, but told us to stay as long as we liked (obviously he was too turned off yet). after beaker scolded me for my poor performance, she escaped to the bathroom and insisted that i do better the next time he came around. "okay," i promised, dipping into the bottom of the margarita. and come back he did.

"so what are you going to do for the rest of your cinco de mayo? you going to celebrate?" "no," i said. "i'm going to go home...and get ready for sixo de mayo." hahahaha. ridiculous. first of all, i couldn't think of what six was in spanish without counting it out, but even still that's just dumb. "i have to get ready for work tomorrow," i continued. "oh, well, you should come in again. i'll be here all week. i work tomorrow and Friday and Saturday." "you want me to come in here and get fat on mexican food just so i can be entertained by you?" okay, what i THOUGHT i was conveying was that he shouldn't make me come back to the restaurant to play cat and mouse that we should just exchange numbers now and hang out OUTSIDE the restaurant. when beaker returned, she said there was no way he would have ascertained that based on what i said. i did try to be more obvious by asking him what he does when he's not working, you know, besides auditioning. he said, he has another job at starbucks.

anyway, though i said some dumb things, and though he's soooo young, admittedly immature, an actor and overworked, there is a happy (?) ending to this story. after much hesitation, where he would walk toward our table then turn away, he finally came over and slipped me a piece of paper with his number on it, saying "you can give me a call and find out what i do when i'm not at work and all that." teehee.

so i have his number. and i have a new found understanding of my awkwardness when it comes to conversations with cute boys. i feel like i can say whatever i'm thinking. i blame that on my all girls' private school upbringing...which may ALSO explain why i don't quite know how to function around boys. because from grades 5th-12th, I was hardly ever around them! in all my independent, strong-willed woman, "you can do anything" upbringing, i was tragically and ironically stunted in the department of simple male-female interactions. i have the dating skills of a 7th grader! twist!

i will probably give elvis a call, y'all. though i had a dream last night, and in it, we were in the bedroom i had growing up (ah! because, again, i'm in 7th grade) and when i wouldn't give him any nookie, i discovered that he was a serial sexual assaulter, and i had to run for my life through my neighborhood. i hope that's just because i watch too much forensic files.

i have just blown my own mind with this epiphany, L.A.